What  Does  Christianity  Mean? 


THE  COLE  LEG  TTJRES 

1912 
What  Does  Christianity  Mean? 

By  W.  H.  P.  Faunce. 

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1911 

Some  Great  Leaders  in  the  World 
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In  the  School  of  Christ 

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Jesus  the  Worker 

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The  Fact  of  Conversion 

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God's  Message  to  the  Human  Soul 

By  John  Watson  (Ian  Maclaren).  The 
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Christ  and  Science 

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The     Cole    Lectures   for    19121  APR?.?, 

delivered  before  Vanderbilt  University  \>^v 


What  Does  Christianity 

Mean? 


By 
William  Herbert  Perry  Faunce 

President  of  Brown  University 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming    H.   Revell    Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  191 2,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  N.  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  St.,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
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THE  COLE  LECTURES 

THE   late  Colonel  E.  W.  Cole,  of  Nashville,  Ten- 
nessee, donated  to  Vanderbilt   University  the  sum 
of  five   thousand   dollars,  afterwards    increased  by 
Mrs.  E.  W.  Cole  to  ten  thousand,  the  design  and  conditions 
of  which  gift  are  stated  as  follows  : 

"The  object  of  this  fund  is  to  establish  a  foundation 
for  a  perpetual  Lectureship  in  connection  with  the  Bib- 
lical Department  of  the  University,  to  be  restricted  in  its 
scope  to  a  defence  and  advocacy  of  the  Christian  religion. 
The  lectures  shall  be  delivered  at  such  intervals,  from  time 
to  time,  as  shall  be  deemed  best  by  the  Board  of  Trust; 
and  the  particular  theme  and  lecturer  shall  be  determined 
by  nomination  of  the  Theological  Faculty  and  confirma- 
tion of  the  College  of  Bishops  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South.  Said  lecture  shall  always  be  reduced  to 
writing  in  full,  and  the  manuscript  of  the  same  shall  be  the 
property  of  the  University,  to  be  published  or  disposed  of 
by  the  Board  of  Trust  at  its  discretion,  the  net  proceeds 
arising  therefrom  to  be  added  to  the  foundation  fund,  or 
otherwise  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  Biblical  Department." 


Foreword 

A  MASTER-WORKMAN  in  the 
field  of  religious  history  pub- 
lished twelve  years  ago  his 
volume:  "What  is  Christianity?"  and 
multitudes  who  could  not  fully  accept 
his  answer  were  stimulated  and  ferti- 
lized by  Harnack's  vivifying  thought. 
The  following  lectures  attempt  the  far 
humbler  task  of  asking:  What  does 
our  faith  mean?  Touching  briefly  on 
the  question  of  "  essence,"  they  pass 
at  once  into  the  broader  inquiry:  What 
does  Christianity  intend,  imply,  in- 
volve? What  is  it  trying  to  do  in  the 
modern  world?  Does  Christianity 
mean  any  one  thing, — one  thing  that 
can  be  stated?  or  does  it  mean  every- 
thing, and  therefore  nothing? 

Our  current  conceptions  of  the 
Christian  faith  not  only  lack  unity,  but 
they   often  revel   in   diversity  and   di- 


8  FOREWORD 

vergence.  But  uncoordinated  think- 
ing means  disorganized  and  incoherent 
living.  We  cannot  achieve  serenity 
and  conquest,  until  we  know  what  we 
are  really  trying  to  give  the  confused 
and  struggling  world. 

Of  course  any  attempt  at  a  unifying 
conception  may  succeed  only  by  sacri- 
ficing what  some  consider  vital.  Cer- 
tainly we  cannot  include  all  things  that 
all  Christians  have  thought  needful. 
We  must  leave  many  cars  standing  on 
side-tracks  if  we  are  to  keep  the  main 
line  open  for  through  trains.  Some 
men  will  doubtless  mourn  that  their 
private  car  was  left  on  a  siding.  But 
others  may  welcome  a  simple  attempt 
to  show  what  one  busy  man  believes 
the  main  line  to  be. 

W.  H.  P.  Faunce. 


Contents 

I.     The  Essence  of  Christianity     13 
II.     The  Meaning  of  God     .         .     59 


III.  The  Basis  and  Test  of  Char 

ACTER    .... 

IV.  The    Principle    of     Fellow 

ship      .... 

V.     The  Aim  of  Education  . 
VI.     The  Goal  of  Our  Effort 


97 
135 

211 


LECTURE    I 

THE    ESSENCE 
OF   CHRISTIANITY 


May  we  know  what  this  new  teaching  is? 

Acts  17:19 

Let  him  take  the  best  and  most  irrefragable 
of  human  notions,  and  let  this  be  the  raft  upon 
which  he  sails  through  life — not  without  risk, 
as  I  admit,  if  he  cannot  find  some  word  of  God 
which  will  more  surely  and  safely  carry  him. 

Plato  :  Phaedo 

The  Christian  religion  has  been  tried  for 
eighteen  centuries ;  but  the  religion  of  Christ  re- 
mains to  be  tried. 

Lessing 


LECTURE    I 

THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRIS- 
TIANITY 

TO  define  a  little  and  obvious 
thing  is  often  easy.  To  define 
a  great  and  pervasive  thing  is 
often  so  hard  as  to  be  impossible. 
All  of  us  could  define,  or  at  least 
describe,  the  house-key  we  carry  in  our 
pockets.  We  hold  the  shining  metal 
in  the  hand,  we  are  perfectly  familiar 
with  its  size,  shape,  weight,  and  use. 
Because  it  is  so  small,  so  definite,  so 
sharply  limited,  so  useless  for  all  pur- 
poses save  one,  we  can  define  the  key. 
So  we  could  define  the  house  to  which 
the  key  admits  us — possibly  forty  feet 
by  thirty,  and  three  stories  high.  But 
when  we  try  to  define  the  family  that 
dwells  within  the  house,  to  define  the 
heredity  which  binds  the  children  to 
their  parents,  to  set  forth  the  nature 
13 


14      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

of  parental  affection  and  filial  obliga- 
tion and  the  relation  of  the  family  to 
the  conservation  of  the  state — at  once 
we  are  moving  among  magnitudes  too 
big  for  our  little  formulas,  forces  so 
impalpable  and  spiritual  that  they 
"  break  through  language  and  escape." 
A  realization  of  this  difficulty  has 
led  many  writers  in  recent  years  to 
adopt  an  agnostic,  or  at  least  a 
"  positive "  point  of  view,  in  dealing 
with  the  deeper  problems  of  life.  Our 
modern  literature  is  all  centrifugal — 
it  flees  from  any  central  reality,  and  is 
quite  content  to  touch  a  few  points  on 
the  outer  rim  of  things.  It  has  re- 
acted from  the  bold  syntheses  of  for- 
mer generations,  and  on  the  really 
great  problems  it  is  significantly  silent. 
Our  historians  modestly  narrate  events, 
but  are  loath  to  pronounce  on  causes 
and  tendencies  and  destinies.  Our 
geologists  will  tell  us  of  the  strata  in 
any  region  and  of  the  obvious  work  of 
erosion;  but  about  the  origin  or  pur- 
pose or  meaning  of  the  physical  globe 
they     are     deliberately     dumb.       Our 


THE.  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  15 

students  of  international  law  tell  us 
what  the  custom  of  modern  nations 
has  been  and  is, — as  to  what  it  ought 
to  be,  as  to  ideals  of  diplomacy,  they 
have  little  to  say. 

Even  our  school  books  reflect  the 
change.  The  tremendous  inquiry  that 
startled  the  childhood  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  "  What  is  the  whole  duty 
of  man?"  has  vanished  from  our  edu- 
cation, in  favor  of  questions  about  the 
number  of  pennyweights  in  an  ounce 
or  the  pints  in  a  gallon — that  startle 
and  summon  nobody.  The  old-fash- 
ioned school  geography  began  in  de- 
ductive fashion  with  a  definition  of  the 
globe  on  which  we  live,  its  shape  and 
size,  and  later  proceeded  to  discuss 
localities  around  the  pupil's  home. 
The  new  geographies  have  reacted 
from  all  that.  They  often  start  with  a 
description  of  the  child's  door-yard; 
then  they  consider  the  village  street, 
then  the  city,  the  state,  the  nation;  but 
long  before  the  pupil  reaches  any 
thought  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  the 
end  of  the  term  has  arrived  and  the 


1 6      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

study  is  over.  Modern  knowledge  has 
been  so  subdivided  and  partitioned  off 
that  no  one  worker  can  see  the  whole 
realm,  and  each  is  very  shy  about  any 
opinion  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  whole. 
Each  of  our  many  sciences  shrinks  from 
the  central  questions  of  life,  clings  to 
its  little  garden-plot,  and  conscien- 
tiously evades  the  thing  the  world  most 
longs  to  know. 

Now  it  is  the  peculiar  gift  and  glory 
of  religion  that  it  deals  with  the  mean- 
ing of  life  as  a  whole.  It  will  not  iden- 
tify itself  with  any  particular  occupa- 
tion, or  science,  or  art.  It  has  a 
message  for  fishermen  and  for  philos- 
ophers; for  oriental  rabbis  and  for 
"  Caesar's  household. "  It  can  flourish 
under  Ptolemaic  or  Copernican  astron- 
omy, in  the  cornfields  of  Galilee  or  the 
purlieus  of  imperial  Rome.  "  This 
thing  was  not  done  in  a  corner,"  and 
it  refuses  to  stay  in  any  corner  of 
human  life.  It  declines  to  be  modest — 
modesty  belongs  to  the  part  and  not 
to  the  whole  of  things — and  deliber- 
ately intends  to  inherit  the  earth.     It 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  17 

is  not  an  additional  piece  of  furniture 
to  be  thrust  into  an  already  crowded 
room;  it  is  the  inflowing  sunshine  that 
shows  us  the  use  and  value  of  all 
the  furniture  we  have  long  possessed. 
It  refuses  to  concern  itself  mainly  with 
the  characteristic  question  of  science: 
What  is  the  fact?  and  passes  to  the 
vastly  deeper  question:  What  is  of 
abiding    significance    and    value? 

Hence  to  define  so  vast  and  vital  a 
power  as  Christianity,  so  world-shak- 
ing an  innovation,  may  be  quite  be- 
yond our  abilities.  Happily  for  us 
we  do  not  have  to  define  Christianity 
before  we  can  live  by  it — any  more 
than  we  have  to  define  the  X-ray  be- 
fore we  can  use  it.  Yet  a  definition  is 
always  a  help,  both  because  it  clears 
away  wrong  conceptions,  and  so 
wrong  uses,  of  any  power,  and  be- 
cause it  makes  us  feel  at  home  with 
a  power  on  which  our  lives  may  de- 
pend.    What,  then,  is  Christianity? 

I.  It  is  not  ritual.  All  the  early 
forms  of  religion  current  among  sav- 
age or  barbarous  tribes,  consist  chiefly 


18      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

of  ceremonies,  incantations,  and  mag- 
ical rites.  A  vast  amount  of  natural 
magic  everywhere  preceded  spiritual 
faith.  Certain  objects,  stones  fallen 
from  the  sky,  poles  graven  with  sacred 
symbols,  certain  ceremonies,  such  as 
bathing  in  a  special  place,  or  eating 
special  food,  certain  forms  of  speech 
used  by  the  forefathers  in  the  crises 
of  life — all  these  seemed  to  possess  an 
intrinsic  efficacy  to  ward  off  evil,  or  to 
win  the  favour  of  the  deity.  Of  course 
such  beliefs  were  sheer  superstition, 
since  they  are  a  clear  denial  of  the 
law  of  cause  and  effect.  Yet  they  still 
survive  amid  all  the  lights  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  penetrate  every  stratum  of 
society.  The  man  who  will  not  begin 
a  journey  on  Friday,  or  will  not 
occupy  a  room  bearing  the  number 
thirteen,  is  denying  that  effects  are 
really  due  to  causes.  He  believes  they 
are  due  to  magic.  The  man  who 
wears  an  amulet  to  ward  off  disease 
is  denying  all  modern  science  and  all 
Christian  faith,  and  asserting  his  irra- 
tional belief  in  the  magic  power  of  a 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         1$ 

bit  of  stone  or  metal.  Both  rational 
and  spiritual  religion  affirm  that  no 
material  object  carried  in  the  pocket 
or  worn  next  the  skin  can  possibly 
affect  the  spiritual  life  of  man  for 
weal  or  woe.  But  superstition — belief 
without  evidence — disregards  both  sci- 
ence and  religion,  and  remains  a  bun- 
dle of  foolish  fears  and  futile  hopes. 

Religion  has  never  entirely  extri- 
cated itself  from  this  belief  in  the 
magic  power  of  material  things  or  set 
forms  of  speech.  Multitudes  of  excel- 
lent people  still  hold  to  the  liquefaction 
of  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius  or  the 
healing  power  of  the  bones  of  St. 
Anne's  wrist.  Multitudes  still  believe 
that  an  infant  dying  before  some  cere- 
monial has  been  performed  over  it 
is  a  lost  child,  or  that  a  dying  man  is 
somehow  not  sure  of  eternal  bliss  un- 
less some  anointing  is  performed  by 
an  authorized  official.  Many  men 
have  journeyed  to  the  Jordan  that  they 
might  bathe  in  its  sacred  waters. 
Others  even  in  our  own  time  treasure 
bits  of  olive-wood  from  Gethsemane  or 


20      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

stones  from  Calvary,  with  the  childish 
hope  that  in  some  mysterious  fashion 
"  virtue "  will  come  out  of  the  wood 
or  the  stone  that  Christ  once  touched. 

Of  course  the  use  of  these  things 
simply  as  symbols  or  memorials  is  fully 
justified.  So  a  man  may  carry  with 
him  the  photograph  of  a  dead  father, 
simply  to  refresh  his  memory  and 
keep  him  in  constant  touch  with  happy 
days  that  are  no  more.  So  the  wife 
wears  her  marriage  ring,  and  the  sol- 
dier carries  aloft  his  banner,  and  the 
college  uses  its  seal.  So  family  heir- 
looms are  handed  down  from  father 
to  son,  and  the  old  silver  plate  of  a 
past  generation  is  worth  far  more  to 
us  than  its  weight  in  sterling  metal 
untouched  by  those  whom  we  revered 
and  loved. 

So  religion  may  and  must  have  her 
symbolic  objects,  as  the  cross,  the 
crown,  the  dove,  the  letters  I.H.S. 
They  rivet  attention,  they  utter  much 
in  little,  they  are  a  kind  of  shorthand 
by  means  of  which  we  can  pack  the 
story   of   two    thousand   years    into   a 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         21 

little  space.  But  if  we  imagine  that 
the  cross  on  the  church  spire  will  save 
the  building  from  the  lightning,  or  the 
making  of  the  sign  of  the  cross  over  a 
dying  man  will  affect  his  spiritual 
status,  we  have  perverted  the  symbols 
of  religion  into  the  tools  of  credulity 
and  superstition.  The  marriage  ring 
may  and  does  help  the  wife  to  remem- 
ber her  vows,  and  remembering,  to 
keep  them.  But  the  ring  itself  has  no 
intrinsic  efficacy  in  the  soul  of  woman- 
hood; it  cannot  work  apart  from  her 
consciousness  and  volition.  The  paint- 
ing of  doves  in  the  chancel  of  the 
church  may  help  the  devotion  of  the 
people,  but  cannot  insure  the  presence 
of  the  eternal  Spirit.  No  physical 
object  is  of  any  spiritual  value  save 
as  by  using  it  a  man  enters  into  new 
desire  and  will.  Persons  may  use 
things,  but  things  cannot  save  per- 
sons. 

This  principle  holds  in  all  symbolic 
action.  The  putting  on  of  the  uniform 
cannot  create  the  soldier.  The  don- 
ning  of   cap   and   gown   cannot   make 


22      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

the  scholar.  First  there  must  be  an 
inside,  an  experience, — then  we  can 
have  an  outside,  a  symbolic  garb. 
Doubtless  the  academic  garb  does  help 
scholarship.  But  the  garb  is  primarily 
effect,  and  not  cause. 

The  application  of  water  to  the  body 
as  the  symbol  of  the  cleansing  and 
purification  of  the  soul  is  as  old  as 
history.  All  oriental  lands  are  filled 
with  ceremonial  washings.  Moham- 
medan, Buddhist,  Brahmin,  living  in 
hot  climates,  find  the  washing  away 
of  dust  from  the  body  the  inevitable 
expression  of  the  renunciation  of  sin. 
Christianity,  originating  in  the  Orient, 
laid  hold  of  the  same  natural  and  beau- 
tiful symbolism.  John  the  Baptist 
summoned  all  Judea  to  a  physical  rite 
as  "  meet  for  repentance,"  and  Jesus 
found  it  natural  to  bow  in  the  waters 
of  the  Jordan.  While  Jesus  declined 
himself  to  baptize  anyone  (as  Paul 
seems  to  have  usually  declined)  yet  his 
disciples  went  everywhere  baptizing 
the  nations.  Obviously  some  of  those 
disciples  confused  the  outward  act  with 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         2$ 

the  spiritual  conversion.  Such  phrases 
as  "  Baptism  doth  now  save  us,"  or 
"  Arise  and  wash  away  thy  sins,"  are 
surely  phrases  Jesus  himself  would  not 
have  used.  The  only  worship  he  re- 
quired was  worship  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  Controversies  about  the  mode 
of  baptism,  however  interesting  his- 
torically, do  not  touch  the  central 
problem.  The  real  question  is  this: 
Can  the  application  of  water  in  any 
form,  to  any  person,  by  any  person, 
in  itself  cleanse  the  soul  from  evil? 
Can  baptism  usher  a  man  into  heaven, 
or  insure  present  acceptance  with 
God?  He  who  answers  "  yes  "  to  that 
question  thereby  breaks  with  all  the 
teachings  of  science  and  all  the  deeper 
meanings  of  religion.  He  is  returning 
to  paganism,  with  its  naive  trust  in 
the  offering  of  beast  and  bird,  or  in 
the  vain  repetition  of  prescribed  words. 
So  primitive  Christianity  availed  it- 
self of  the  universal  symbolism  of  a 
common  meal.  To  eat  together  al- 
ways has  been,  always  will  be,  the  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  the  commun- 


24      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

ion  of  spirits.  It  may  greatly  assist 
such  communion.  But  to  believe  that 
without  such  an  outward  and  visible 
sign  the  highest  communion  with  our 
fellows  and  with  God  is  impossible, 
to  hold  that  grace  is  locked  up  in  the 
bread  and  wine  and  is  otherwise  in- 
accessible— that  is  belief  in  magic,  and 
thus  is  far  removed  from  Christian 
faith.  Ritual  acts  are  natural,  often 
beautiful,  sometimes  necessary;  but 
they  are  never  rigid,  stereotyped, 
coercive.  None  of  them  can  be  of  per- 
petual validity.  In  the  presence  of  any 
form  that  would  forever  enchain  the 
conscience  we  must  say  as  St.  Paul 
daringly  said  of  the  most  sacred  cere- 
mony of  his  race:  "  Circumcision  is 
nothing." 

No  ritual  act,  even  the  most  appro- 
priate and  venerable,  can  ever  take 
rank  with  a  moral  and  spiritual  act. 
The  obligation  to  love  our  enemies  is 
eternal,  written  in  the  soul  of  man, 
though  never  fully  realized  till  Jesus 
made  it  articulate  in  his  teachings. 
But  an  obligation  to  use  wine  or  bread 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         25 

or  water  in  a  certain  way  is  not  dis- 
coverable in  the  soul  of  any  man,  is  not 
eternal,  and  our  only  knowledge  of 
such  an  obligation  comes  from  a  very 
few  ancient  passages  about  whose 
translation  there  is  much  dispute.  The 
teaching  of  Jesus  about  God  and 
prayer  and  forgiveness  and  the  social 
order  and  eternal  life  is  so  abundant 
that  no  textual  or  historical  criticism 
can  ever  weaken  it  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree. The  teaching  of  Jesus  about 
ritual  is  confined  to  two  occasions  in 
his  life,  and  the  reports  that  have 
reached  us  are  so  various  as  to  con- 
fuse the  most  loyal  followers  and  give 
rise  to  nineteen  hundred  years  of  con- 
troversy. Three  facts  regarding  all 
Christian  ceremonial  stand  out  clear 
and  sharp: 

(1)  No  ritual  act  can  change  the 
soul  of  man,  but  it  is  the  soul  of  man 
that  alone  gives  value  to  the  ritual 
act.  (2)  No  command  to  perform  a 
ritual  act  can  ever  rank  with  the  com- 
mand to  maintain  spiritual  attitudes 
and  relations,  since  one  is  written  on 


26      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

parchment,  while  the  other  is  written 
in  the  conscience  of  all  men.  (3)  No 
ritual  can  ever  remain  in  its  exact 
original  form,  since  we  can  never  be 
sure  exactly  what  that  form  was.  We 
may  have  changed  the  hour  of  cele- 
bration of  the  communion  supper,  may 
have  changed  the  number  of  cups  used, 
the  posture  of  the  communicants,  the 
nature  of  the  wine.  But  the  exact 
form  of  any  ceremony  cannot  be  essen- 
tial to  him  who  believes  that  it  is  the 
spirit  that  quickeneth,  the  flesh  profit- 
eth  nothing. 

Christianity  has  its  ritual  acts,  sanc- 
tioned by  its  founder,  made  venerable 
by  history,  rich  with  memory  and  sug- 
gestion. We  need  them,  for  we  are 
flesh  as  well  as  spirit.  A  religion  of 
pure  thought  or  pure  feeling  may  be 
enough  for  angels,  but  not  for  us.  We 
dwell  in  the  realm  of  the  visible,  the 
natural,  the  symbolic,  and  for  us  the 
word  must  become  flesh.  But  Chris- 
tianity is  not  ritual;  and  if  through 
some  failure  of  translation  or  trans- 
mission it  should  lose  every  shred  of 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         2J 

its  original  ceremonies,  it  would 
straightway  create  new  forms  and 
carve  new  physical  channels  for  its 
spiritual   and   eternal   message. 

2.  Christianity  is  not  a  series  of 
propositions.  It  is  not  intellectual 
assent  to  a  logical  conclusion.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  a  philosophy  of  the  un- 
seen; it  is  not  an  articulated  creed. 
Here  we  come  against  the  oldest  and 
most  persistent  of  heresies,  and  in 
dealing  with  it  we  need  clear  discrimi- 
nation. 

Of  course  Christianity  has  a  creed. 
Every  great  experience  of  humanity  is 
capable  of  rational  interpretation.  It 
can  be  thought  out,  and  must  be 
thought  out,  if  it  is  to  be  held  as  valid 
for  all  men  everywhere.  The  repudia- 
tion of  theology  is  the  repudiation  of 
intelligence,  for  theology  is  simply  the 
religious  experience  analyzed,  traced 
back  to  its  causes,  brought  into  rela- 
tion to  the  historical  and  natural  order 
of  the  world.  The  simple  faith  of  the 
fishermen  of  Galilee  was  quite  suffi- 
cient for  Galileans.     But  it  could  never 


28      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

have  conquered  Antioch  and  Rome 
and  Alexandria,  had  it  not  been  trans- 
lated into  Greek  forms  of  thought  by 
the  Apostle  Paul.  To  him  it  was  not 
enough  to  see  the  blinding  light  on  the 
road  to  Damascus  and  be  convicted  of 
sin.  At  once  his  intelligence  demanded 
"  Who  art  thou,  Lord?  "  and  soon  in  the 
silence  of  Arabia  he  was  thinking  out 
the  logical  implications  and  sequences 
of  his  great  spiritual  upheaval.  A 
Christianity  which  is  incapable  of  intel- 
lectual formulation  and  rational  de- 
fence is  surely  an  illusion.  "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
thy  mind "  as  well  as  with  all  thy 
heart. 

Yet  it  remains  true  in  the  life  of  the 
individual  and  the  race,  that  religion 
comes  before  theology,  as  stars  come 
before  astronomy,  as  flowers  before 
botany.  Theology  is  the  effect,  reli- 
gion the  cause.  We  must  have  the 
religious  experience  before  we  can  ex- 
plicate and  vindicate  it  in  proposi- 
tional  form.  And  millions  of  men  have 
had  that  mighty  inner  experience,  that 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         29 

opening  of  the  soul  to  God,  who  are 
totally  unable  to  translate  it  into  a 
satisfactory  creed. 

If  Christianity  were  creed,  surely 
somewhere  in  the  New  Testament  we 
should  find  a  compact  and  convenient 
credal  formula,  the  signing  of  which 
might  give  one  admission  to  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven.  But  the  New  Testa- 
ment seems  wholly  indifferent  to  any 
such  formula.  It  is  definite  and  urg-- 
ent  on  questions  of  duty.  It  has 
explicit  directions  for  slaves  and  their 
masters,  for  parents  and  children,  for 
bishops  and  deacons.  But  as  to  the 
theological  questions  that  form  the 
backbone  of  the  creeds  of  the  church 
the  New  Testament  is  eloquently 
silent— either  the  writers  have  little 
knowledge  or  little  interest. 

If  Christianity  were  creed,  then  or- 
thodoxy would  mean  Christ-likeness, 
and  those  men  and  women  who  are 
most  sound  in  the  faith  would  be 
most  unselfish  and  generous  in  char- 
acter. But  history  shows  no  such  con- 
stant relation  of  theology  to  life.    The 


30      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

heretics  in  every  communion  have 
often  been  the  most  lovable  of  men. 
Granted  that  their  theory  was  wrong, 
their  hearts  were  right,  and  pectus  est 
quod  facit  theologum. 

If  Christianity  were  creed,  we 
should  be  forced  to  believe  that  eternal 
bliss  depends  for  every  man  on  his 
possessing  a  logical  mind,  and  so  arriv- 
ing at  a  set  of  correct  opinions. 
"  Whosoever  will  be  saved/'  says  the 
creed  of  Athanasius,  "  before  all  things 
it  is  necessary  that  he  hold  the  Catho- 
lic faith.  .  .  .  And  the  Catholic  faith 
is  this,  that  we  worship  .  .  .  neither 
confounding  the  persons  nor  dividing 
the  substance. " 

But  such  teaching  is  not  only  with- 
out support  in  Scripture  or  Christian 
character,  it  is  directly  opposed  to  all 
Scripture  and  all  experience.  '  What 
doth  the  Lord  thy  God  require  of 
thee,"  cries  the  Hebrew  prophet,  "  but 
to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy  and  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God?"  "Come,  ye 
blessed,"  says  Christ  in  his  picture  of 
the    last    judgment,    "  for    I    was    an 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         31 

hungered  and  ye  gave  me  meat." 
Opinions  are  the  offspring  of  varying 
temperament,  growing  apprehension, 
changing  environment.  It  is  impos- 
sible that  a  believer  in  the  Copernican 
system  of  astronomy  should  interpret 
the  ascension  of  Christ,  when  "  he 
went  up  into  heaven  and  a  cloud  re- 
ceived him  out  of  their  sight,"  in  the 
same  way  as  a  believer  in  the  Ptolemaic 
idea  that  the  earth  is  the  centre  of 
the  sky.  It  is  impossible  that  the  idea 
of  demoniacal  possession  should  mean 
the  same  thing  to  Simon  Peter  on  the 
one  hand  and  to  the  devout  Christian 
Louis  Pasteur  on  the  other.  The 
"  spirit  of  1776 "  was  a  vital  reality 
long  before  it  crystallized  into  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
The  spirit  of  Jesus  controlling  the 
hearts  of  men  was  a  vital  power  long 
before  Chalcedon  or  Nicaea,  and  will 
survive  the  disappearance  of  all  the 
formulas  of  all  the  councils.  Chris- 
tianity has  a  creed,  but  Christianity  is 
not  creed. 


32      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

3.  Christianity  is  not  history.  The 
Christian  faith  indeed  entered  the 
world  at  a  definite  time  and  place  and 
took  its  position  in  the  historic  order. 
If  the  Word  became  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us,  it  must  have  had  a  birthday 
and  a  birthplace.  If  it  is  expressed 
through  a  crucifixion,  a  resurrection,  a 
Pentecostal  assembly,  a  series  of  mis- 
sionary journeys,  a  conquest  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  surely  these  things 
must  historically  condition  it.  No 
faith  can  remain  forever  in  the  clouds. 
Its  visions  must  become  concrete  in 
human  action,  and  its  spirit  unfold  in 
the  institutions  of  society.  The  history 
of  Christianity  is  the  most  important 
section  of  the  history  of  the  world. 

But  if  the  Christian  faith  be  for  each 
of  us  dependent  on  historical  study, 
then  for  most  of  us  Christian  cer- 
tainty has  departed.  Few  men  are 
competent  to  undertake  such  study, 
fewer  still  have  the  time,  and  none  of 
us  can  postpone  the  Christian  life  un- 
til the  results  of  our  historical  investi- 
gations are  complete.     Thirty  years  of 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         33 

special  study  would  hardly  suffice  to 
enable  a  man  to  give  an  expert  opinion 
on  the  historicity  and  genuineness  of 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 
Meanwhile  what  becomes  of  a  man's 
religious  faith?  Was  the  closing  chap- 
ter of  Mark's  gospel  a  part  of  the 
original  document,  or  did  the  Revised 
Version  rightly  question  its  right  to 
hold  its  place?  Was  the  great  com- 
mission, with  its  fully  developed  trini- 
tarian  formula,  uttered  by  our  Lord  in 
exactly  its  present  form?  Was  Paul 
ignorant  of  the  story  of  the  virgin 
birth,  or  did  he  designedly  ignore  it? 
These  are  questions  of  exceeding  in- 
terest and  importance,  on  which  final 
truth  may  not  be  reached  for  many 
generations,  and  on  which  no  demon- 
stration can  ever  be  reached  by  any 
human  mind.  History  deals  with  the 
contingent  and  the  probable,  never 
with  the  demonstrated  and  indubitable. 
The  sure  conclusions  of  mathematics 
are  possible  only  when  we  retire  from 
the  real  world  of  men  and  things  and 
deal    with    imaginary    quantities    and 


34      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

ideal  relations.  History  knows  no  cer- 
tainty, but  only  greater  or  less  prob- 
ability. 

But  religion  is  a  dream  unless  it 
can  give  the  soul  of  man  a  joyous  cer- 
tainty that  his  deepest  trust  shall  not 
be  put  to  shame.  A  religious  faith 
which  depends  absolutely  on  a  doubt- 
ful reading  in  an  ancient  manuscript, 
a  faith  which  is  bound  up  with  the 
question  whether  a  fish  could  swallow 
a  man,  or  whether  dead  men  actually 
rose  and  walked  about  in  Jerusalem  at 
the  time  of  our  Lord's  crucifixion — 
such  a  faith  is  necessarily  contingent, 
uncertain,  timorous.  It  is  never  sure 
of  itself  until  it  has  heard  of  the  latest 
discovery  in  Egypt  or  Assyria,  never 
at  peace  until  it  has  read  the  morning 
paper.  It  is  made  anxious  by  any  new 
interpretation  of  the  narratives  in 
Genesis,  becomes  angry  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  documents  to  be  found  in  the 
Pentateuch,  and  cannot  tolerate  any 
discussion  of  the  going  back  of  the 
sun's  shadow  on  the  dial  of  Ahaz. 
Such  a  faith  is  at  the  mercy  of  all  his- 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         35 

torical  study — or  else  historical  study 
is  at  the  mercy  of  such  faith. 

The  great  victorious  souls  of  the 
Christian  centuries  have  not  so  learned 
Christ.  Augustine's  faith  was  not  the 
result  of  any  acceptance  of  historical 
facts,  but  of  a  following  of  the  inner 
voice.  Luther's  faith  was  not  based 
on  the  historicity  of  the  book  of 
Esther,  which  he  condemned  as  with- 
out religious  value.  Bunyan's  faith 
was  not  based  on  ancient  or  modern 
history,  but  on  an  experience  wrought 
out  in  his  own  soul  and  quite  inde- 
pendent of  critics  high  or  low.  If  the 
plain  man  is  to  depend  absolutely  on 
our  professors  of  history  for  his  Chris- 
tianity, he  is  indeed  in  evil  case.  If 
we  revolt  from  the  domination  of 
priests,  only  to  come  under  the  domi- 
nation of  specialists,  we  have  merely 
exchanged  one  tyranny  for  another, 
with  no  increase  of  certainty  or  joy. 
Deeper  than  all  questions  of  ancient 
texts  lies  the  inexpugnable  reality  of 
the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man. 
"  One  thing  I  know,  now  I  see  " — that 


36      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

is  the  starting  point  and  foundation  of 
all  religion.  Christianity  has  a  history, 
both  bright  and  dark;  but  Christianity 
is  not  history. 

4.  Christianity  is  not  a  series  of 
good  deeds  to  be  done  or  bad  deeds  to 
be  avoided.  Christianity  is  not  mo- 
rality. Possibly  the  best  example  of 
honest  endeavor  to  achieve  character 
apart  from  religious  impulse  and  en- 
thusiasm is  to  be  found  in  the  auto- 
biography of  Benjamin  Franklin.  His 
sincere  laborious  efforts  at  self-im- 
provement by  the  daily  practice  of  de- 
tached virtues  are  naYve  and  instruct- 
ive. He  conceived  character  as  made 
up  of  certain  common-sense  virtues, 
which  he  desired  to  possess  or  to  pos- 
sess more  fully.  It  never  occurred  to 
him,  apparently,  that  the  springs  of 
action  needed  to  be  touched  by  any 
power  coming  from  the  unseen.  That 
a  human  soul  could  be  transformed 
by  a  great  consecration,  that  it  could 
be  bathed  in  any  tide  of  spiritual 
emotion,  and  energized  by  a  divine 
impulsion — all    that    was    outside    the 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         37 

purview  of  the  "  religion  of  common- 
sense  "  which  flourished  in  the  eight- 
eenth century.  Rather  to  the  men  of 
that  period  religion  was  a  highly 
rationalized  system  of  ethics,  and  the 
way  to  inner  peace  was  through  rais- 
ing oneself  by  sheer  dead-lift  into  vir- 
tuous habits.  Hence  he  devised  that 
famous  list  of  thirteen  distinct  virtues, 
each  one  to  be  practised  for  a  week, 
and  at  the  end  of  thirteen  weeks  the 
treadmill  round  to  begin  again.  Thus 
in  the  fifty-two  weeks  that  made  up 
the  year  he  could  go  four  times  over 
those  thirteen  cardinal  virtues,  giving 
to  each  separate  virtue  four  separate 
weeks  of  assiduous  practice  within  the 
year.  The  virtues  were  arranged  by 
him  in  order  of  difficulty,  and  the  last 
two  in  the  list  were  chastity  and 
humility.  Certainly  those  two  virtues 
were  never  attained  by  any  human 
being  through  such  a  self-conscious 
process.  A  little  knowledge  of  either 
psychology  or  religion  would  show  us 
that  those  virtues,  like  all  the  others, 
are  attained  not  by  self-polishing,  but 


38      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

by  surrender  of  self  to  some  higher 
vision  or  nobler  inspiration.  To  get 
them  we  must  forget  them.  But 
Franklin  has  benefited  the  world  by 
his  confessed  failure.  He  has  shown 
us  that  the  complacency  of  the  prac- 
tised moralist  is  not  the  door  to  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  that  he  that 
is  least  in  the  realm  of  self-dedication 
to  a  higher  power  is  greater  than  all 
the  advocates  of  self-improvement 
since  the  world  began. 

Religion  has  indeed  its  moral  codes 
and  its  commanded  virtues.  The  lar- 
gest part  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is 
devoted  to  individual  and  social  duty. 
The  message  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophets  is  alive  with  the  demand  for 
personal  and  national  righteousness. 
A  large  section  of  nearly  every  New 
Testament  epistle  is  given  to  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  right  relation  of 
man  to  man.  But  behind  all  the 
scathing  arraignments  of  Amos  and 
Isaiah  lies  the  vision  of  one  "  high  and 
lifted  up."  Behind  the  Pauline  exhor- 
tation to  "  steal  no  more  "  and  to  "  re- 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         39 

member  the  poor"  is  the  declaration: 
"  It  is  not  I  that  live,  but  Christ  that 
liveth  in  me."  And  behind  every  com- 
mand of  Jesus  to  "  love  one  another  " 
is  the  consciousness:  "  He  that  sent 
me  is  with  me."  To  the  greatest 
teachers  of  humanity  duty  comes  not 
as  a  list  of  things  to  be  done  or 
avoided,  but  as  an  overwhelming  pas- 
sion for  an  ideal.  The  passion  for 
rightness  springs  up  in  their  souls 
"  like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame, 
up  from  the  burning  core  below."  Re- 
ligion has  indeed  its  moral  code,  but 
religion  is  not  morality. 

What,  then,  is  Christianity?  Daring 
to  express  it  in  a  single  phrase,  we  may 
say :  Christianity  is  purpose.  It  is  the 
revelation  of  the  persistent  loving 
purpose  of  the  eternal  God,  and  the 
implanting  of  that  same  purpose  in 
the  life  of  man. 

Again  we  must  remember  that  no 
single  phrase  can  hold  all  the  aspects, 
or  reach  all  the  heights  and  depths  of 
so  great  a  power  as  Christianity.  Any 
definition  we  can  frame  may  be  partial, 


40      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

may  need  much  explication  and  adjust- 
ment. We  shall  not  catch  the  whole 
sunlight  in  the  little  mirror  where  we 
try  to  reflect  its  brightness.  Yet  the 
smallest  mirror  may  give  back  a  true 
image  of  the  sun.  And  I  believe  that 
no  truer  language  can  be  found  to 
describe  the  Christian  faith  than  that 
we  have  just  used:  Christianity  is  the 
revelation  throttgh  Jestis  of  Nazareth  of 
the  eternal  unchanging  purpose  of  God, 
and  the  developing  of  that  same  purpose 
in  the  lives  and  institutions  of  men. 

Why  do  we  say  this?  Simply  be- 
cause the  entire  life  and  teaching  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  affirm  it,  and  he 
knew  what  his  religion  was.  The  un- 
varying emphasis  of  Jesus  in  all  his 
parables,  proverbs,  prayers,  instruc- 
tions, is  on  the  attitude,  the  settled 
desire,  the  persistent  disposition,  the 
purpose,  of  men;  and  the  hope  of  Jesus, 
for  himself  and  his  Kingdom,  is  "ac- 
cording to  the  eternal  purpose. " 

If  we  would  know  anything  about 
the  essence  of  Christianity,  we  must 
surely  go  to  Christ.    The  apostles  after 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         4* 

him  could  translate  and  expound  and 
amplify  in  the  languages  and  phi- 
losophies of  Europe — they  could  not 
originate  or  create.  Christ  knows  what 
Christianity  is.  If  we  are  Christians 
we  do  not  merely  believe  things  about 
him ;  we  believe  him.  That  is,  what  he 
held  to  be  right  we  have  by  instinctive 
sympathy  adopted;  what  he  repudiated 
as  wrong  we  have  felt  to  be  worthy 
of  repudiation.  What  he  held  to  be 
real  and  vital  has  become  vital  and 
real  to  us.  The  great  realities  of  his 
consciousness  are  through  the  Chris- 
tian experience  made  real  to  all  his 
disciples.  He  is  not  an  authority  in 
astronomy,  or  archeology,  or  literature: 
he  is  by  virtue  of  his  character  the 
supreme  authority  of  the  ages  on  the 
question  what  sort  of  life  is  worth 
while.  What  stood  out  for  him  as 
central,  vital,  supremely  important,  is 
surely  the  essential  element  in  the 
Christian  religion. 

If  ritual  were  central  in  Christianity, 
could  Jesus  have  said:  "Neither  in 
this    mountain    nor    yet    at    Jerusalem 


42      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

shall  ye  worship, — but  in  spirit  and  in 
truth  "?  Would  he  have  found  greater 
faith  in  the  Roman  centurion  than  in 
Israel?  Would  he  have  given  so 
meagre  directions  regarding  the  sacra- 
ments of  the  church  that  Protestant 
and  Catholic  in  their  interpretations 
are  still  far  asunder? 

If  correct  credal  statement  and  be- 
lief were  central  in  Christianity,  could 
Jesus  have  failed  to  leave  behind 
him  some  compendium  of  essential 
truth? 

If  history,  rightly  narrated  and  be- 
lieved, is  central  in  Christianity,  then 
Jesus  did  not  himself  teach  or  preach 
the  Christian  faith,  since  the  history 
was  not  wrought  out  except  through 
his  life  and  death  and  the  events  which 
immediately  followed.* 


*  One  of  the  most  dangerous  of  heresies  is  that  re- 
cently avowed  by  an  orthodox  champion,  Dr.  T.  P. 
Forsyth,  in  his  pungent  and  paradoxical  volume,  "  The 
Person  and  Place  of  Jesus  Christ,"  where  he  makes 
an  absolute  separation  between  the  faith  which  Christ 
held  and  that  which  he  gave  his  disciples.  He  does 
not  hesitate  to  represent  Christ  as  "practising  one 
type    [of  religion]   and  prescribing  another"    (p.  51). 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         43 

If  the  practice  of  desirable  virtues 
is  Christianity,  then  Christ's  religion 
is  simply  an  advance  on  Platonism  or 
Confucianism,  and  Christ  is  the  suc- 
cessor and  rival  of  Socrates,  not 
in  any  sense  the  "  Son  of  God  with 
power." 

But  in  every  fragment  of  his  teach- 
ing that  has  survived  Jesus  emphasizes 
the  attitude  and  purpose  of  men  as 
decisive  in  character  and  destiny.  He 
lays  enormous  stress  on  the  will: 
"  Whosoever  willeth  to  do  .  .  .  shall 
know  " — making  volition  the  door  into 
knowledge.  He  rouses  the  sluggish 
and  unresolved:  "  What  will  ye  that 
I  should  do  unto  you?"  His  only 
condemnation  of  the  rejected,  in  the 
parable  of  the  last  judgment,  is :  "  Ye 
did  it  not  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these 

Again  he  distinguishes  sharply  between  "the  religion 
Christ  presented  in  his  vocation,  and  that  which  he 
cherished  in  his  most  private  soul"  (p.  35),  and  con- 
cludes :  "  It  is  impossible  to  live  the  religion  of  Jesus  " 
(p.  56).  Here  extreme  orthodoxy  goes  over  bodily  into 
the  camp  of  those  it  most  fears  and  repudiates.  If 
Christ  did  not  teach  the  Christian  faith  and  live  the 
Christian  life,  the  Christian  world  must  shift  its  whole 
allegiance  from  Christ  to  Paul  or  Peter. 


44      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

my  brethren  " — where  the  very  variety 
of  duties  unperformed  ("  ye  fed  me 
not  .  .  .  visited  me  not,"  etc.)  shows 
that  the  evil  was  the  lack  of  an  all- 
embracing  purpose. 

Most  of  his  parables  are  parables 
inculcating  purpose  as  essential  to  life. 
At  the  close  of  the  story  of  the  Good 
Samaritan  comes  the  question:  "  Which 
was  neighbour?" — and  forever  after 
neighbourhood  became  a  matter,  not  of 
vicinity,  but  of  intention.  The  Prod- 
igal Son  appears  as  rescued  the  mo- 
ment he  sincerely  resolves  that  he  will 
"  arise  and  go." 

Jesus  repudiates  not  the  ignorant 
or  poor,  not  the  harlot  or  the  publican, 
but  the  malicious  and  selfish.  He  is 
very  patient  with  the  "  brute-like 
sins  " — those  of  fleshly  appetite, — and 
scourges  the  "  fiend-like  sins  " — hate 
and  scorn  and  pride.  He  has  no  list 
of  good  deeds  to  be  done  or  bad  ones 
to  be  avoided,  no  manual  of  moral  eti- 
quette with  its  series  of  "  don'ts."  He 
drives  with  immense  energy  at  the 
centre  of  the  soul.     Almost  regardless 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         45 

of  what  the  man  has  done  or  may  do, 
he  bears  down  with  resistless  force  on 
the  disposition,  the  attitude,  the  in- 
tention seated  in  the  citadel  of  per- 
sonality. He  insists  on  the  inwardness 
of  character,  as  something  far  deeper 
than  all  its  manifestations  in  posture 
and  garb  and  gifts  to  the  poor  and 
forms  of  worship.  When  he  finds  the 
anti-social  spirit  masquerading  behind 
religious  ceremonial,  the  gentle  Naza- 
rene  lifts  his  "  whip  of  small  cords  " 
high  in  the  air.  To  hard-hearted  wor- 
shippers he  thunders:  "  Leave  there  thy 
gift  before  the  altar!  First  be  recon- 
ciled to  thy  brother,"  then  talk  about 
religion.  All  his  beatitudes  unfold  the 
blessedness,  not  of  conquering  or  pos- 
sessing, but  of  being — of  being  patient, 
and  merciful,  and  hungry  and  pure. 
What  purity  involves,  when  translated 
into  schools  of  manners  and  codes  of 
law — on  that  Jesus  has  little  to  say. 
He  leaves  the  ages  to  work  that  out, 
as  one  who  opens  up  an  overflowing 
spring  may  leave  others  to  bottle  and 
label    the    water.      What    "  merciful " 


46      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

means,  whether  it  permits  the  use  of 
animals  for  food,  or  for  experiment — 
on  that  Jesus  of  course  is  silent.  He 
emphasizes  the  disposition,  and  leaves 
all  details  untouched.  Who  the  "  peace- 
makers "  are,  whether  we  shall  find 
them  now  among  the  Quakers  or  the 
military  captains  or  the  inventors — 
on  that  question  Christ  will  not  help 
us.  He  is  nobly  and  instructively 
vague;  or  rather  he  is  so  persistently 
central  that  he  will  not  be  diverted  to 
the  margin  of  life. 

Some  men  have  imagined  that  vir- 
tue would  be  greatly  advanced  if  we 
had  in  the  New  Testament  a  sort  of 
dictionary  of  conduct,  so  that  we  could 
open  at  the  word  "  charity "  or 
"  amusements  "  or  "  politics  "  and  find 
our  duties  neatly  listed  and  defined. 
But  no  man  is  inspired  or  uplifted  by 
perusal  of  a  dictionary.  The  Bible  be- 
longs not  to  the  literature  of  knowl- 
edge, but  to  the  literature  of  power. 
Jesus  is  silent  regarding  a  thousand 
duties,  that  he  may  impart  the  sense 
of  duty.     He  lets  others  catalogue  our 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         47 

sins,  while  he  gives  us  the  realization 
of  sin.  He  launches  his  invective  at  the 
hardened  disposition,  he  blasts  with 
moral  lightning  the  self-seeking  atti- 
tude, resolutely  commits  to  the  outer 
darkness  the  unpitying  and  anti-social 
purpose.  But  he  claims  for  his  fellow- 
ship the  cheating  publican  who  has 
determined  to  "  restore  fourfold,"  and 
the  sinful  woman  who  will  "  go  and 
sin  no  more,"  and  the  blundering 
apostle  who  can  honestly  say:  "I  am 
ready  to  go  with  thee  to  prison  and  to 
death."  Not  what  the  man  has  at- 
tained, but  whither  he  is  tending,  is 
interesting  to  Jesus.  Not  how  far  a 
stumbling  mortal  has  risen,  but 
whether  he  is  trying  to  rise;  not  what 
he  can  show  of  accomplishment,  but 
what  he  is  struggling  to  become — this 
is   the   test   of  Jesus. 

"  What  I  aspired  to  be, 
And  was  not,  comforts  me." 

Now  this  purposive  life,  which  Jesus 
inculcates  in  humanity,  is  precisely 
what   he   reveals   as    existing   in    God. 


48      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

What  he  wants  of  us  is  that  we  shall 
become  what  God  forever  is.  It  is  a 
commonplace  of  our  religious  litera- 
ture that  Jesus  emphasized  the  Father- 
hood of  God.  But  fatherhood,  as 
Jesus  conceived  it,  is  simply  and  essen- 
tially purpose.  "  If  ye  give  good  gifts 
unto  your  children  " — in  such  giving 
lies  the  essence  of  fatherhood.  "  Like 
as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the 
Lord  pitieth,"  and  that  pity  creates 
the  fatherhood.  The  phrase  "  off- 
spring of  God  "  would  have  been  im- 
possible to  Jesus.  Not  what  God  did 
on  creation's  morning,  but  what  he 
does  and  feels  to-day  makes  him  our 
Father.  Jesus  does  not  care  to  go 
back  to  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  repeat 
the  long  genealogy:  "which  was  the 
son  of  Adam,  which  was  the  son  of 
God."  He  says  nothing  about  man's 
being  "  created  in  the  image  of  God." 
His  interest  is  not  in  any  metaphysical 
or  original  relation  of  God  to  men, 
but  in  God's  present,  gracious,  benefi- 
cent attitude.  When  we  say:  "I  be- 
lieve in  God  the  Father  Almighty,"  we 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         49 

really  say:  "I  believe  that  eternal 
beneficent  purpose  is  at  the  heart  of 
the  world. "  Fatherhood  is  established, 
not  by  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  but 
by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  the 
fourteenth  chapter  of  St.  John.  It  is 
not  a  philosophical  theorem,  but  a  re- 
ligious insight. 

It  is  against  this  eternal  back- 
ground of  loving  purpose  in  God  that 
Jesus  holds  up  before  us  a  life  of  loving 
purpose  as  the  thing  supremely  worth 
while  for  men.  Everywhere  Jesus  in- 
sists that  the  purpose  which  he  re- 
quires of  his  disciples,  and  which  he 
cherishes  in  himself,  is  identical  with 
the  eternal  purpose  of  the  Father.  In 
one  breath  Jesus  demands  that  his 
disciples  shall  follow  him,  and  in  the 
next  he  declares  that  he  is  at  one  with 
God.  "  If  ye  love  me  keep  my  com- 
mandments "  is  followed  by  the  decla- 
ration: "I  do  always  those  things  that 
please  him."  The  duty  of  the  Chris- 
tian to  be  Christ-like  is  thus  founded 
on  the  declaration  of  the  Christ-like- 
ness of  God.     Men  are  to  enter  into 


50      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

the  secret  of  Christ  just  because  Christ- 
likeness  is  central  in  God.  If  God  sent 
forth  Jesus,  then  God  must  be  as  good 
as  Jesus  is — that  is  the  conviction  that 
has  revolutionized  the  moral  world. 
When  men  looked  at  Jesus  they  began 
to  say:  "God  is  not  Baal,  or  Moloch, 
or  Zeus,  or  Mars,  not  a  tyrant,  or  a 
government  official,  or  a  celestial  ac- 
countant— he  gave  us  Jesus  and  he 
must  be  as  good  as  his  gift."  We 
may  readily  admit  that  there  were 
things  Jesus  did  not  know,  for  his 
biographers  affirm  it.  We  may  con- 
fess that  a  thousand  problems  that 
now  puzzle  us  he  never  faced.  Yet 
in  the  single  short  Galilean  life  we 
see  the  divine  quality,  and  quality  is 
all  that  counts.  Looking  at  the  daily 
attitudes  of  Jesus,  we  can  say:  "God 
must  be  like  that!"  and  at  the  same 
instant  we  say:  "That  is  what  we 
must  become!  " 

Beholding  Jesus  touching  the  eyes 
of  the  blind  men,  weeping  at  the  grave 
of  Lazarus,  scourging  the  hypocrites, 
driving  out  the  money-changers,  bless- 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         51 

ing  little  children,  we  see  the  char- 
acteristic quality  of  God;  but  we  see 
also  what  should  be  characteristic  in 
human  life.  What  Jesus  commanded, 
that  he  himself  was.  But  what  he  was 
for  thirty-three  brief  years  in  a  single 
far-away  province,  that — as  good  as 
that — God  must  be  throughout  all 
ages.  Those  brief  years  are  as  a  little 
rift  in  the  clouds,  through  which  we 
get  a  glimpse  of  the  blue  firmament 
beyond.  The  rift  was  small  and  soon 
was  closed  again.  But  we  know  the 
sky  which  overarches  all  is  of  the  same 
color  and  quality  as  the  little  patch  of 
blue  that  was  visible.  "  He  that  hath 
seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father."  The 
language  may  stumble  in  which  we  try 
to  say  it;  the  cumbrous  nomenclature  of 
the  historic  creeds  we  may  utterly  re- 
ject, as  Saul's  heavy  armour  was  re- 
jected by  the  stripling  David.  But 
somehow — say  it  in  whatever  phrases 
you  will — the  great  all-conquering 
assurance  of  Christianity  is  that  in 
quality  and  temper,  in  undying  sym- 
pathy and  purpose,  what  Christ  was  God 


52      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

is.  And  then  follows  that  great  illumi- 
nation of  life,  that  vision  which,  once 
seen,  never  departs:  the  religion  of 
Jesus  is  nothing  more  and  nothing 
less  than  the  revealing  of  the  pur- 
pose which  is  eternally  in  the  life  of 
God,  and  the  implanting  of  that  pur- 
pose in  the  minds  and  lives  and  laws, 
and  institutions  of  men. 

When  once  we  accept  this  insight, 
a  vast  sense  of  relief  may  well  come 
to  a  perplexed  and  burdened  church. 
If  this  is  the  centre  and  core  of  Chris- 
tianity, a  multitude  of  other  things  are 
relegated  to  a  subordinate  position  on 
the  circumference.  A  score  of  prob- 
lems regarding  the  Christian  docu- 
ments are  at  once  seen  to  be  less  than 
central.  The  documentary  theory  of 
the  Pentateuch  or  of  the  prophecy  of 
Isaiah  is  indeed  interesting  and  im- 
portant, but  must  never  be  so  exalted 
as  to  obscure  questions  lying  at  the 
centre  of  faith  and  life.  Questions  of 
date  and  place  and  method  of  com- 
position of  the  New  Testament  books 
are  all  of  interest.     But  no  vagaries  of 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         53 

criticism — and  its  vagaries  at  times 
have  been  fantastic  and  astonishing — 
can  hide  from  us  the  central  quality  in 
the  life  of  Jesus.  Even  if  we  were  to 
follow  the  extremest  criticism  of  the 
four  gospels,  and  resign  all  but  the  nine 
"  pillar-passages  "  of  Schmiedel,  those 
passages  would  leave  our  faith  un- 
touched and  clear.  That  faith  does  not 
depend  on  any  single  passage,  not  on 
any  manuscript  discovered  or  yet  to  be 
discovered,  not  on  any  critical  theory 
old  or  new.  It  is  a  faith  which  is  writ- 
ten in  all  manuscripts,  which  shines 
out  of  every  parable,  sermon,  saying 
of  our  Lord,  which  is  woven  as  a  scar- 
let thread  into  all  the  texture  of 
Christ's  conviction  and  utterance.  It 
is  a  faith  in  the  present  Christ-likeness 
of  God,  and  the  future  Christ-likeness 
of  perfected  human  society.  Criticism 
can  no  more  rob  us  of  that  than  it  can 
render  uncertain  the  light  of  Arcturus 
and  Orion. 

So  there  are  a  multitude  of  other 
questions  regarding  ceremonial  obser- 
vance,   regarding   the    organization    of 


54      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

the  church  and  its  function  in  the 
world,  regarding  the  accounts  of  the 
birth  of  Jesus,  the  method  of  the  resur- 
rection and  the  ascension,  the  reality 
and  mode  of  the  life  beyond, — matters 
of  intense  interest  to  the  church,  mat- 
ters to  which  no  Christian  can  remain 
indifferent.  Some  of  them  may  be  of 
great  importance  in  apologetics,  in 
theology,  in  history.  But  never  for  a 
moment  must  we  allow  them  to  be- 
come central  in  our  conception  of  the 
Christian  faith.  The  moment  they  do 
become  central,  our  faith  begins  to 
waver  and  share  in  all  the  fluctuations 
of  literary  and  historical  research.  We 
are  then  as  one  who  steps  off  the  rock 
and  stands  on  a  raft  moored  to  the 
rock  but  rising  and  falling  with  the 
waves  of  the  sea.  Then  the  air  is  at 
once  filled  with  cries  of  alarm.  "  If 
the  sun  did  not  stand  still  in  Ajalon, 
my  Bible  is  gone,"  cries  one  distressed 
literalist.  "  If  the  fourth  gospel  is  not 
the  work  of  the  apostle,"  cries  an- 
other, "  your  faith  is  vain."  But  an- 
other voice   is   heard   across   our   con- 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY         55 

troversial  storm :  "  O  thou  of  little 
faith,  wherefore  didst  thou  doubt?" 
It  is  the  man  of  little  faith  who  stakes 
it  all  on  one  precarious  text,  one  his- 
torical theory,  one  philosophical  for- 
mula. It  is  the  man  of  broad  deep 
faith  who  makes  central  in  his  thinking 
what  was  central  to  Jesus  and  holds 
to  that,  while  the  theories  of  literary 
and  historical  criticism  are  "  as  dust 
that    riseth    up     and     is     lightly    laid 


again." 


When  a  great  storm  descended  on 
our  New  England  coast  a  few  years 
ago,  scores  of  vessels  were  wrecked 
and  the  list  of  casualties  was  carefully 
studied.  What  ships  were  safest  at 
the  height  of  the  hurricane?  Not 
those  that  were  moored  at  their  docks 
on  the  shore — many  of  them  were 
pounded  to  pieces.  Not  those  ships, 
surely,  that  were  without  any  anchor- 
age, drifting  on  the  high  seas, — some 
of  them  vanished  and  were  never  heard 
from.  But  those  ships  were  safest  that 
were  anchored  at  one  point  by  one 
stout  cable,  and  then  left  free  to  sway 


56      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

and  swing  with  the  changing  winds 
and  tides  of  the  ocean.  The  men  that 
are  most  secure  amid  the  religious 
fluctuations  of  our  age  are  not  those 
who  are  stoutly  fastened  at  every  point 
to  the  laborious  creeds  of  the  past,  not 
those  who  drift  unattached  and  aim- 
less, but  those  who  are  anchored  by 
one  great  loyalty  to  our  Lord,  and 
then  are  free  to  adapt  themselves  to 
the  changing  needs  of  their  generation. 
Tenacious  loyalty  to  the  purpose  of 
Christ — that  is  stability  and  strength. 
Constant  readjustment  to  the  needs 
of  humanity  —  that  is  efficiency  and 
service. 


LECTURE  II 

THE   MEANING 
OF   GOD 


Through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying:  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here; 
Face  my  hands  have  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself. 

Browning 

In  this  entire  world  God  sees  himself  lived 
out.  This  world,  when  taken  in  its  wholeness, 
is  at  once  the  object  of  the  divine  knowledge 
and  the  deed  wherein  is  embodied  the  divine 
will. 

Josiah  Royce. 

Ob  Alles  in  ewigem  Wechsel  kreist, 
Es  beharret  im  Wechsel  ein  ruhiger  Geist. 

Goethe 


LECTURE  II 

THE  MEANING  OF  GOD 

TO  multitudes  of  men  the  word 
God  conveys  no  meaning 
whatever.  It  is  like  xn — a 
printed  symbol  of  things  unknown. 
The  name  of  God,  when  uttered,  may 
induce  a  vague  sense  of  awe  or  terror, 
as  it  did  in  the  ancient  Hebrews,  who 
refused  to  write  or  speak  the  word 
Jehovah.  It  may  bring  us  a  sense  of 
endless  time  or  limitless  space,  like  the 
haunting  repetition  of  the  word 
"  Nevermore,"  in  Poe's  poem  "  The 
Raven."  It  may  be  to  thoughtless 
minds  as  void  of  all  significance  as  the 
word  "  jabberwock "  or  "  bander- 
snatch  "  or  any  other  of  the  names  of 
curious  creatures  seen  by  Alice  in 
Wonderland. 

Yet  the   fact   remains   that  until  we 
know  what  a  man  means  by  "  God " 

59 


60      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

we  do  not  know  what  he  means  by 
anything  else.  His  attitude  toward  the 
universe  is  vastly  more  important  than 
his  attitude  toward  any  little  section 
of  it.  His  centre  is  more  significant 
than  any  point  on  his  circumference. 
What  a  man  thinks  of  philanthropy, 
of  reform,  of  politics,  of  industry,  is 
all  determined  absolutely  by  what  he 
thinks  of  God.  If  he  believes  in  no 
God,  then  he  has  no  centre,  and  all 
the  world  for  him  is  shreds  and  patches, 
a  thing  of  many  colours,  but  dislocated 
and  unmeaning.  If  he  believes  in  a 
celestial  tyrant,  he  will  believe  in 
tyranny, — ecclesiastical  and  political 
and  financial.  If  he  believes  in  a 
pantheistic  mist,  a  benign  ethical  con- 
fusion, he  will  prove  incapable  of  anger 
or  martyrdom.  No  pantheist  could 
"  hew  Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord/' 
or  follow  any  master  to  prison  and  to 
death. 

All  men  admit  to-day  that  only  the 
fool  can  say  in  his  heart:  "There  is  no 
God."  Any  limited  human  intelligence, 
facing   the   vastness    that    science    has 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  6l 

revealed,  and  assuming  to  deny  a  uni- 
versal intelligence,  is  par  excellence  the 
fool.  He  is  assuming  omniscience  in 
order  to  deny  that  omniscience  exists. 

But  it  is  not  the  denial  of  God  that 
ails  our  generation,  it  is  the  slow  fad- 
ing of  the  vivid  sense  of  God  out  of 
men's  lives.  They  do  not  deny  him, 
they  forget  him.  They  cannot  dis- 
prove, so  they  overlook  him.  They 
grant  the  theistic  argument,  but  live 
an  atheistic  life.  They  still  believe 
that  God  is, — somewhere, — but  they 
question  if  he  cares  for  them  or  hears 
their  cry,  or  stoops  to  interfere  with 
a  world  of  law  and  order.  They  hesi- 
tate to  call  him  a  person.  They  cease 
to  pray,  except  perhaps  in  church. 
Their  very  reverence  tends  to  stifle 
their  petition. 

The  difficulty  is  that  our  concep- 
tion of  the  universe  has  grown  faster 
than  our  thought  of  God  has  grown. 
We  no  longer  believe  in  the  little 
world  of  our  childhood,  made  out  of 
nothing  in  six  days  just  about  six 
thousand  years  ago.     The  light  which 


62      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

reached  us  last  evening  from  some  of 
the  fixed  stars  started  on  its  journey 
through  the  deeps  of  space  before 
Abraham  was  born.  We  have  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  "  dark  background 
and  abysm  of  time."  And  all  through 
those  millions  of  years,  living  creatures 
have  come  into  being,  lived  their  few 
days,  and  vanished,  creatures  as  many 
as  the  drops  in  the  ocean,  or  the  mole- 
cules in  the  atmosphere.  How  can 
God  care?  How  can  there  be  any  per- 
sonal oversight  or  sympathy  for  bil- 
lions and  trillions  and  billions  of  tril- 
lions that  have  been  flung  into 
momentary  consciousness,  as  clouds  of 
dust  are  flung  into  brief  visibility  by 
the  revolving  wheels  of  a  motor-car? 
Our  world  has  grown  so  vast  in  time 
and  space  and  number  of  organisms 
that  our  God  has  not  kept  up  with 
our  world. 

Recently  I  received  a  letter  from  an 
intimate  friend  who  had  just  buried  his 
only  child.  He  wrote:  "  I  am  greatly 
troubled.  I  am  losing  my  religion. 
.  .  .  I  do  not  want  my  wife  to  know  it, 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  63 

her  faith  is  so  simple.  I  am  only  one 
man  out  of  so  many  millions,  and 
things  must  take  their  natural  course. 
If  the  doctor  is  successful,  we  are 
glad.  If  you  are  shrewd,  you  succeed 
in  business.  Does  God  direct  all  the 
millions  of  doctors?  Does  he  make 
you  shrewd  in  business?  We  belittle 
him  when  we  think  so.  These  things 
are  of  small  importance  to  him,  when 
you  consider  the  millions.  .  .  .  Yes- 
terday my  wife  and  I  went  down  to 
see  the  big  steamship  sail.  We  had 
to  go  through  the  slums.  The  gutters 
were  filled  with  babies,  most  of  whom 
will  grow  up  and  go  to  the  devil.  .  .  . 
For  months  we  prayed  together  every 
night  for  our  little  one,  and  it  died — 
it  was  not  God,  it  was  nature." 

"  So  many  millions,"  my  friend 
wrote.  His  thought  of  the  world  had 
broadened  out,  and  his  idea  of  God 
was  still  the  same  as  when  he  was  ten 
years  old.  He  cannot  believe  that  the 
God  of  his  childhood  is  great  enough 
to  dominate  the  world  of  his  manhood. 
He  perceives  universal  law,  unending 


64      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

process,  measureless  space,  and  he  can- 
not yet  see  that  this  tremendous  phys- 
ical universe  is  to  God  what  man's 
body  is  to  his  soul.  He  has  not  yet 
realized  that  the  stars  may  be  but  the 
blood  corpuscles  in  the  inconceivable 
immensity,  that  all  human  history  is 
but  a  single  word  or  "  accent  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  and  that  the  laws  of 
nature  are  merely  the  habits  of  God. 

The  Old  Testament  writers,  like  all 
Semitic  minds,  naturally  conceived 
God  as  an  oriental  potentate.  Isaiah 
saw  "  the  Lord  sitting  on  a  throne  high 
and  lifted  up,"  and  all  the  prophets 
saw  him  in  the  same  way.  Here  and 
there  in  the  prophets'  stern  messages 
are  gleams  of  faith  in  the  divine  Father- 
hood. But  oriental  royalty  was  the 
basis  of  the  doctrine  held  by  Israel, 
transmitted  to  Constantine,  to  Hilde- 
brand,  to  Cromwell,  to  John  Knox,  to 
Jonathan  Edwards,  and  faithfully  ex- 
pounded by  American  divines  during 
the  century  of  static  orthodoxy  that 
has  been  called  the  "  glacial  period  of 
New  England." 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  65 

But  this  oriental  majesty  came  to  us 
modified  by  the  influence  of  Roman 
law  and  Roman  administration,  so  that 
our  later  American  theologians  con- 
ceived the  universe  as  a  sort  of  con- 
stitutional monarchy,  where  the  chief 
care  of  the  sovereign  is  to  uphold  a 
government.  Later  this  monarchical 
idea  of  God  was  softened  and  human- 
ized to  the  idea  of  a  judge  keeping  a 
celestial  account  of  the  deeds  of  every 
mortal  man.  John  Fiske  tells  us  that 
in  his  childhood,  whenever  the  word 
"  God "  was  mentioned,  he  saw  the 
image  of  a  venerable  bookkeeper,  with 
white  flowing  beard,  standing  behind 
a  high  desk  and  writing  down  the  bad 
deeds  of  John  Fiske.  Is  it  strange  that 
a  child,  joining  the  church  under  such 
a  conception  of  the  relation  of  God 
and  man,  subsequently  and  tempo- 
rarily found  all  religious  faith  impos- 
sible? But  if  our  thought  of  God  could 
keep  pace  with  our  understanding  of 
the  world,  religious  faith  would  be  as 
deep  and  satisfying  as  ever. 

In  a  certain  New  Hampshire  town 


66      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

years  ago  five  boys  lived  in  one  home 
and  attended  school  across  the  street. 
At  recess  the  whole  five  came  running 
back,  and,  as  they  burst  into  the  house, 
the  cry  was  often  heard :  "  Mother,  I 
want  something  to  eat !  "  Our  thought 
of  her  was  mainly  that  of  one  who 
controlled  the  pantry,  and  kept  in  sun- 
dry stone  jars  things  very  delicious  to 
a  boyish  palate.  But  when  her  sons 
had  grown  to  manhood  and  she  still 
lingered  with  us,  her  hands  folded  from 
toil  and  her  face  turned  toward  the 
setting  sun,  we  no  longer  thought  of 
her  in  that  way.  ,We  saw  in  her  a 
spiritual  presence  and  benediction. 
We  asked  not  for  things  to  eat  or  to 
wear,  but  for  the  gift  of  her  peace,  her 
unquenchable  love,  her  faith  in  the  un- 
seen. The  larger  thought  of  what  she 
really  was  had  quite  changed  the  tenor 
of  our  petition. 

Never  again  can  we  speak  of  God 
as  literally  and  physically  walking  in 
one  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day, 
apparently  neglecting  all  the  other 
regions    of    the    world.      Never    again 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  67 

can  we  ask  God  to  break  his  laws  for 
our  advantage,  to  work  a  miracle  when 
our  child  is  sick,  to  remove  a  disease 
from  our  household  and  transfer  it  to 
a  household  in  the  slums — is  that  the 
meaning  of  some  prayers?  He  has  a 
greater  purpose  than  any  I  have 
dreamed  of.  His  ocean  has  some 
greater  object  than  to  sail  my  little 
boat.  His  Hudson  or  his  Susquehanna 
has  some  grander  aim  than  to  fill  my 
drinking-cup.  His  sun  has  some 
vaster  mission  than  to  shine  in  at  my 
window  and  light  my  breakfast  table. 
He  governs  by  law,  inflexible,  irre- 
sistible, but  behind  that  law  is  a  pur- 
pose so  vast  and  beneficent  that  I  can 
rejoice  in  it,  even  when  my  cup  is  un- 
filled and  my  boat  is  wrecked.  To 
accept  that  purpose  is  to  enter  into 
peace.  To  incarnate  it  in  daily  life  is 
to  find  what  life  really  means.  Not 
as  last  resort  but  as  first  desire,  not  in 
submission  but  in  exultation,  we  say: 
"  Thy  will  be  done." 

A  well  known  graduate  *  of  Brown 

*  Sam  Walter  Foss. 


68      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

University  left  behind  him  when  he 
passed  into  the  unknown  a  suggestive 
little  poem,  called  "  Two  Gods." 


A  boy  was  born  'mid  little  things, 
Between  a  little  world  and  sky, 

And  dreamed  not  of  the  cosmic  rings 
Round  which  the  circling  planets  fly. 

He  lived  in  little  works  and  thoughts, 
Where  little  ventures  grow  and  plod, 

And  paced  and  ploughed  his  little  plots, 
And  prayed  unto  his  little  God. 

But  as  the  mighty  system  grew, 

His  faith  grew  faint  with  many  scars; 

The  Cosmos  widened  in  his  view — 
And  God  was  lost  among  His  stars. 


II 


Another  boy  in  lowly  days, 

As  he,  to  little  things  was  born, 

But  gathered  lore  in  woodland  ways, 
And  from  the  glory  of  the  morn. 

As  wider  skies  broke  on  his  view, 
God  greatened  in  his  growing  mind; 

Each  year  he  dreamed  his  God  anew, 
And  left  his  older  God  behind. 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  69 

He  saw  the  boundless  scheme  dilate 
In  star  and  blossom,  sky  and  clod; 

And  as  the  universe  grew  great, 
He  dreamed  for  it  a  greater  God. 

In  the  last  half  century  has  come 
the  inevitable  reaction  from  crass  and 
vulgar  thoughts  of  God,  and  men  have 
been  telling  us  that  we  must  conceive 
God  as  the  metaphysical  absolute.  In 
Mr.  Bradley's  thought  *  of  God  we  get 
away  indeed  from  the  anthropomor- 
phism of  John  Fiske's  childhood,  but 
have  we  found  the  God  and  Father  of 
Jesus  Christ?  If  it  be  wrong  to  think 
of  God  as  a  magnified  man,  is  it  better 
to  think  of  him  as  an  exhalation — or 
as  a  principle — or  as  an  impersonal 
somewhat?  Apparently  the  God  of 
Mr.  Bradley  is  so  shadowy  and  remote 
that  the  only  affirmation  we  can  make 
about  him  is  that  all  affirmations  are 
misleading. 

We  come  back,  therefore,  with  re- 
newed confidence  to  Christ's  idea  of 
God    as    Father    of    our    spirits.      This 

*  "  Appearance  and  Reality,"  F.  H.  Bradley. 


70      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

conception  is  frankly  non-philosoph- 
ical, and  definitely  ethical.  It  does  not 
imply,  as  we  have  already  said,  any- 
thing about  the  creation  of  the  globe 
or  of  man.  Jesus  is  interested  not  in 
God's  "  essence  "  or  "  substance  " — 
those  distinctions  came  later  when 
Greek  speculation  invaded  Christian 
faith — but  in  God's  attitude  and  God's 
will.  That  the  central  thing  in  God  is 
intelligent,  conscious,  loving  purpose — 
that  is  what  Jesus  means  when  he  bids 
us  say:  "Our  Father." 

But  this  purpose  may  be  conceived 
in  two  ways.  We  may  think  of  it  as 
the  filling  out  of  a  preconceived  plan — 
in  which  case  we  have  Calvinism  in  re- 
ligion and  determinism  in  philosophy. 
Or  we  may  conceive  it  as  a  vital 
impetus  (ilan  vital,  in  the  phrase  of 
Henri  Bergson),  an  onward  movement 
like  that  of  an  artist  painting  a  picture, 
whose  purpose  unfolds  as  his  work 
proceeds — then  we  have  freedom  in 
God  and  man,  real  contingency  in 
events,  and  a  genuinely  growing  world. 
Into  the  ancient  and  somewhat  musty 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  71 

debate  between  determinism  and  free- 
will we  have  no  wish  to  enter.  Modern 
science  is  essentially  Calvinistic.  It 
proclaims  laws  quite  as  fixed  as  any 
divine  decrees,  a  heredity  more  pitiless 
than  any  natural  depravity,  while  its 
"  natural  selection  "  is  far  more  ruth- 
less than  any  doctrine  of  election 
known  to  Geneva  or  to  Scotland. 
Modern  philosophy,  on  the  contrary,  is 
in  large  sections  of  it  essentially  ideal- 
istic, tolerant,  making  room  for  free- 
dom, finding  in  man  vast  undeveloped 
powers,  and  daring  to  attribute  at 
least  a  real  experience  to  God.  The 
modern  conception  of  God  as  pro- 
gressive purpose  "  fulfilling  himself  in 
many  ways  "  casts  a  flood  of  light  on 
many  current  problems,  and  while  it 
cannot  settle  the  world-old  enigmas, 
it  makes  us  quite  content  to  ignore 
some  of  them  as  irrelevant. 

For  one  thing,  it  compels  us  to  be- 
lieve in  the  continuous  revelation  of 
God.  If  that  vast  purpose  is  now  un- 
folding in  the  unfolding  world,  we  can- 
not   conceive    that   all    communication 


72      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

of  God  to  men  stopped  at  a  certain 
date  near  ioo  A.D.  We  cannot  believe 
revelation  was  confined  to  one  Syrian 
province,  and  one  happy  century.  We 
cannot  believe  that  inspiration  ceased 
with  the  apostles,  or  miracles  came 
to  an  end  when  some  Christian  prophet 
gave  up  the  ghost.  To  deny  that  God 
is  now  speaking  to  his  world  is  the 
first  step  toward  denial  that  he  has 
ever  spoken.  Of  course  a  certain  race 
may  for  pedagogic  reasons  be  chosen 
as  special  light-bearers — the  Greeks 
to  show  us  the  world  of  beauty,  the 
Romans  to  expound  the  value  of  law, 
the  Hebrews  to  exalt  righteousness. 
Of  course  a  single  personality  may  be 
chosen  for  the  culminating  expression 
of  some  truth — as  Hosea  or  Micah  or 
Savonarola.  But  to  say  that  when  the 
race  or  the  person  or  the  period  has 
vanished,  all  communication  of  the 
divine  ceases,  and  henceforth  we  can 
only  make  commentaries  on  the  past — 
that  is  the  crowning  heresy  possible 
to  man.  Rather  must  we  believe  that 
the  universe   is   the   "  continuous   con- 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  73 

versation  of  God  with  his  creatures." 
The  older  orthodoxy,  like  the  older 
rationalism,  put  God  at  a  distance. 
Paley's  world  was  like  a  watch  once 
wound  up,  now  left  to  run  down  ex- 
cept when  the  maker  interfered.  It  is 
precisely  that  interference  which  has 
now  become  incredible.  We  cannot 
grant  that  the  creation  was  so  bungled 
and  misshapen  as  to  need  any  be- 
lated interference.  We  cannot  be- 
lieve in  a  Deux  ex  mac /una,  or  a  God 
who  comes  and  goes,  coming  in  at 
emergencies  like  a  policeman  or  a 
fire  patrol.  We  cannot  believe  that  he 
appeared  once  at  the  creation  of  the 
world  and  again  at  the  dawn  of  life 
on  the  planet,  and  again  intruded  into 
the  cosmic  order  to  establish  conscious- 
ness or  to  create  man.  For  us  he  is 
everywhere  or  nowhere.*  His  action 
indeed  is  not  like  that  of  gravitation, 
always  the  same  because  always  blind. 

*"May  we  not  be  looking  at  the  working  of  the 
Manager  all  the  time,  and  at  nothing  else?  Why- 
should  he  step  down  and  interfere  with  himself?  This 
is  the  lesson  science  has  to  teach  theology — to  look 
for  the  action  of  the  Deity,  if  at  all,  then  always;  not 


74      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

It  may  vary  vastly  from  century  to 
century  and  land  to  land.  But  the 
unchanging  purpose  behind  all  the 
variation  is  ever  present — "  Raise  thou 
the  stone  and  there  am  I." 

The  absentee  God  of  the  Deist,  the 
retired  God  of  the  older  orthodoxy, 
the  God  outside  his  world  as  spectator, 
complacent  or  wrathful,  drawing  near 
at  critical  moments  to  steady  a  halting 
world-machine — all  these  conceptions 
have  had  their  day.  Purpose  means 
the  interpenetration,  permeation,  sat- 
uration of  the  whole  creation  with  the 
divine.  It  means  the  immanent  Will 
in  every  object  in  nature  and  every 
human  spirit.  The  permeation  of 
nature  with  mind  is  constantly  becom- 
ing clearer  as  the  old  mechanical  con- 
ception of  the  world  yields  and  retires 
in  the  presence  of  biology  and  psy- 
chology. The  seventeenth  century 
through    its    dominant    thinkers    made 

in  the  past  alone,  nor  only  in  the  future,  but  equally 
in  the  present.  If  his  action  is  not  visible  now,  it 
never  will  be,  and  never  has  been,  visible."— Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  "  Ideals  of  Science  and  Faith,"  p.  30. 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  75 

the  universe  a  mechanism;  the  eight- 
eenth century  made  it  a  government; 
the  nineteenth  century  made  it  a 
growth;  the  twentieth  century  is  in- 
terpreting the  world  as  growth  di- 
rected by  immanent  purpose.  Often 
those  thinkers  of  our  time  who  hold 
no  brief  for  any  religious  faith  are 
compelled  by  the  facts  to  bow  before 
something  behind  and  within  all  the 
facts.  So  the  naturalist,  John  Bur- 
roughs, writes: 

"  It  would  seem  as  if  all  nature  were 
permeated  with  mind  or  mind-stuff. 
As  science  has  to  assume  the  exist- 
ence of  an  all-pervasive  ether  to  ac- 
count for  many  physical  phenomena, 
so  it  appears  to  me  we  have  to  postu- 
late the  universal  mind  to  account  for 
what  we  find  all  around  us."  * 

Again,  after  explaining  how  the  cells 
act  in  the  growing  plant  or  animal, 
Mr.   Burroughs  writes: 

"  There  must  be  a  plan  which  is  not 
in  the  keeping  of  the  cells.  These 
unite,   act  together  as  the  men  of  an 

*  The  Outlook,  May  2,  1908. 


7&      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

army  act  together  in  battle,  carrying 
out  a  system  of  manoeuvres  and  of  tac- 
tics of  which  individually  they  know 
nothing.  Who  does  know?  Whose 
plan  is  it?  Who  and  where  is  the 
general  who  is  conducting  the  cam- 
paign? "  * 

Here  is  the  "  wider  teleology,"  from 
which  no  thoughtful  man  can  really 
escape.  The  argument  from  design 
has  indeed  lost  much  of  its  force.  It 
went  too  far,  and  it  made  the  infinite 
design  to  consist  of  a  series  of  petty 
contrivances.  It  assumed  that  if  the 
sun  lights  up  my  school-room,  then  it 
was  created  for  the  sake  of  lighting  up 
school-rooms;  that  if  the  gulf-stream 
gives  Great  Britain  a  milder  climate 
than  Labrador  lying  in  the  same  lati- 
tude, then  the  gulf-stream  was  created 
for  British  benefit;  and  that  if  from 
the  cork-tree  are  produced  stoppers 
suitable  for  glass  bottles,  then  the 
cork-tree  was  designed  to  supply  the 
needs  of  bottle-makers.  That  kind  of 
reasoning    led    men    into    absurd    at- 

*  Atlantic  Monthly,  Dec,  1911. 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  77 

tempts  at  interpreting  so-called  "  spe- 
cial providences/'  If  a  vessel  threat- 
ened with  shipwreck  was  saved  by  a 
change  in  wind  or  tide,  that  was  provi- 
dential. But  if  the  vessel  went  upon 
the  rocks  the  "  providence "  was  ap- 
parently absent  or  inoperative.  If  a 
wasting  disease  attacked  a  neigh- 
bour's household,  but  left  my  house 
unharmed,  I  was  expected  to  discern 
the  divine  protection.  But  if  it  at- 
tacked my  home  while  sparing  my 
neighbour's,  then  there  was  nothing 
providential  in  the  course  of  events. 
If  lightning  struck  the  theatre,  it  was 
meant  to  be  a  token  of  divine  dis- 
pleasure. If  it  shattered  the  meeting- 
house and  slew  the  preacher,  then  there 
was  no  attempt  to  interpret  the  in- 
scrutable  decree. 

All  such  easy  and  presumptuous 
reading  of  events  as  if  they  were 
wrought  to  advance  or  to  thwart  our 
petty  human  ends  is  both  ludicrous 
and  pathetic.  A  world  which  is  but  a 
series  of  contrivances  is  only  a  magni- 
fied  carpenter's   shop   after   all.     That 


7§      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

is  the  world  of  Homer,  where  in  the 
morning  of  history  men  could  believe 
that  Neptune  raised  a  storm,  or  that 
Juno  rushed  into  battle  to  save  her 
favourite  from  death.  Such  a  naive 
method  of  explaining  storms  and  bat- 
tles suited  the  childhood  of  the  race 
and  suffices  for  childish  minds  now. 
But  to  our  maturer  thought  no  such 
small  and  accurate — accurate  because 
small — interpretation  of  the  purpose 
behind  and  within  the  world  is  possi- 
ble. We  cannot  say  of  any  single 
object  that  we  know  why  it  was  made, 
or  of  any  single  event  that  we  are  sure 
why  it  occurred.  But  that  all  these 
objects  and  events  taken  together  are 
spelling  out  a  form  of  self-expression 
for  God,  and  so  have  eternal  meaning 
for  men — of  that  we  are  ever-increas- 
ingly  sure. 

"This  world's  no  blot  or  blank 
To  us ;  it  means  intensely  and  means  good. 
To  find  its  meaning  is  my  meat  and  drink." 

When  we   listen  to   a   symphony  of 
Beethoven,  we  may  not  be  sure  that 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  79 

we  comprehend  his  meaning  in  any 
single  phrase  of  the  music.  Did  he 
intend  in  a  certain  passage  to  rep- 
resent the  song  of  birds,  or  the  rippling 
of  a  brook,  or  simply  to  convey  the 
idea  of  peace  and  hope?  The  tremen- 
dous chords  with  which  he  opens  the 
Ninth  Symphony — are  they  "  the 
knocking  of  fate  at  the  door "  of 
humanity,  or  are  they  the  beating  of 
waves  on  the  shore,  or  do  they  mean 
something  else  beyond  our  ken?  Only 
the  rash  or  petty  mind  pretends  to  have 
fathomed  and  compassed  the  musician's 
full  intention  in  every  bar  of  the  music. 
But  far  more  rash  and  petty  would 
be  the  man  who  should  dare  affirm 
that  Beethoven  had  no  meaning,  that 
all  the  notes  arranged  themselves  by 
chance,  and  that  a  symphony  is  merely 
a  wild  dance  of  unintelligible  noises. 
Only  the  fool  could  say  in  his  heart: 
"  There  is  no  aim  or  meaning  in  the 
Ninth  Symphony/'  To  find  its  mean- 
ing is  the  musician's  "  meat  and 
drink." 

We    must,    then,    conceive    of    the 


80      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

world  as  a  continuous  revelation  of 
God.  All  objects — from  the  spray  of 
golden-rod  by  the  road-side  to  the 
spiral  nebula  blazing  in  the  midnight 
sky,  all  events — from  the  falling  of  a 
sparrow  to  the  migration  of  a  race — 
are  but  a  dim  articulation,  in  poor 
broken  syllables,  of  what  God  is  and 
wants  us  to  be.  Science  can  give  us 
the  causes  of  things,  religion  alone  can 
interpret  their  value. 

But  the  world  is  not  only  a  con- 
tinuous revelation,  it  is  a  continuous 
creation.  The  conception  of  an  essen- 
tially unfinished  world  is  one  of  the 
great  gains  of  the  last  half-century. 
If  the  world  is  finished,  it  indeed  is 
hopeless.  If  what  we  see  is  the  best 
that  God  can  do,  then  he  is  less  than 
omnipotent  or  less  than  good.  If 
"  nature  is  red  in  tooth  and  claw  "  and 
God  is  "  kind  unto  the  unthankful  and 
the  evil,"  how,  then,  can  nature  be  the 
garment  of  God?  Only  because  it  is 
an  unfinished  garment,  still  being 
woven,  whose  checkered  pattern  is 
dimly  seen  as   the  shuttles   leap  back 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  8l 

and  forth,  binding  many-coloured 
threads  in  strange  design.  The 
thought  of  the  world  as  process  rather 
than  as  flat,  as  a  "  becoming "  rather 
than  a  "  has  been  "  or  an  "  is,"  is  at 
once  a  vast  relief  to  religious  faith  and 
a  vast  inspiration  to  heroic  endeavour. 
The  poets  have  indeed  always  refused 
to  think  of  the  world  as  a  dead  thing. 
To  them  the  sea  has  always  been  more 
than  a  saline  solution,  and  mountains 
more  than  masses  of  rock  and  earth. 
Wordsworth  has  told  us  that  he  could 
perceive  a 

"  Something    far   more    deeply   interfused, 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

Tennyson's  "  Higher  Pantheism " 
gives  us  the  "  vision  of  him  who 
reigns."  Bryant  makes  us  perceive  in 
the  flight  of  the  "  Waterfowl  "  a  guid- 
ing presence  that  produces  the  "  cer- 
tain flight."  Singers  as  well  as 
prophets  have  always  insisted  that  the 


82      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

world  has  a  soul.  Now  the  modern 
study  of  society  is  making  us  perceive 
corporate  meanings  behind  all  individ- 
ual action.  Is  there  a  soul  of  the 
family — a  something  that,  bequeathed 
from  parent  to  child,  produced  in  one 
case  the  pitiful  Jukes  family,  and  in 
another  case  produced  the  illustrious 
line  of  the  Edwards  family?  Is  there 
a  soul  of  the  nation,  so  that  France 
and  Germany,  for  example,  are  simply 
the  collective  incarnations  of  two  op- 
posing temperaments  and  ideals?  Is 
there  a  soul  of  the  world,  as  Plato 
thought,  and  as  Fechner  in  our  time 
has  reaffirmed?  * 

Certainly  this  at  least  is  clear,  that 
the  unfinished  creation  is  plastic  to  the 
unfolding  purpose  of  God.  Not  until 
he  gets  through  with  it  can  we  pass 

*No,  such  a  God  my  worship  may  not  win, 
Who  lets  the  world  about  his  ringers  spin, 
A  thing  extern;  my  God  must  rule  within, 
And  whom  I  own  for  Father,  God,  Creator, 
Hold  nature  in  himself,  himself  in  nature; 
And  in  his  kindly  arms  embraced,  the  whole 
Doth  live  and  move  by  his  pervading  soul. 

Goethe. 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  83 

final  judgment  upon  it.  "  We  see  not 
yet  all  things  put  under  him."  We 
see  now  all  things  "  confused  as  on  a 
darkling  plain."  We  find  all  good  en- 
tangled in  bad,  all  truth  enmeshed  with 
error,  all  joy  bound  up  with  pain,  all 
high  achievement  haunted  by  sense  of 
failure.  We  see  to-day  a  world  that  is 
like  one  of  Rodin's  sculptured  figures, 
rough-hewn,  and  only  in  part  emerged 
from  the  marble.  We  see  a  human 
race  that  is  like  Milton's  half-created 
lion, 

"Pawing  to  get  free  his  hinder  parts." 

But  this  confusion  of  transition  is 
the  most  hopeful  feature  of  the  world 
as  we  know  it.  On  the  obvious  incom- 
pleteness and  chaotic  condition  of  the 
world  our  faith  is  built.  If  the  world 
were  a  finished  thing,  finished  six 
thousand  years  ago,  our  only  duty 
would  be  to  adjust  ourselves  in  grim 
submission  to  an  unchangeable  mis- 
fortune. But  if  the  world  is  now  in 
process  of  becoming, —  natura  naturans 


84      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

not  natura  natural  a — then  its  imper- 
fection is  the  opportunity  of  God  and 
the  hope  of  man. 

This  great  expanse  in  space — cities 
and  towns  and  deserts  and  swamps  and 
"  salt,  unplumbed,  estranging  sea  " — 
this  is  not  the  best  that  God  can  do! 
It  is  the  refractory  material  on  which 
he  is  at  work.  This  expanse  in  time — 
migrations,  battles,  sieges,  epidemics, 
delusions — this  is  not  the  Master- 
workman's  completed  thought.  It  is 
an  "  unfinished  symphony,"  or  rather 
it  is  the  strident  tuning  of  the  instru- 
ments now  being  brought  up  to  pitch 
and  prepared  for  music  that  is  to  be. 
The  whole  world,  which  would  oppress 
us  as  a  nightmare,  if  we  thought  God 
was  through  with  it,  now  fills  us  with 
the  sense  of  boundless  possibility,  and 
keeps  us  alert  for  glimpses  of  the  Mas- 
ter's plan.  It  is  not  carved  out  of 
nothing  and  left  to  itself;  it  is  created, 
exuded,  deposited  from  moment  to  mo- 
ment by  the  immanent  life  of  God. 
It  is  not  a  finished  block  to  be  ap- 
proved   or    condemned;    it    is    a    block 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  85 

now  on  the  whirling  lathe,  subjected 
to  the  cutting  process  by  the  pressure 
of  an  unseen  hand,  and  we  who  watch 
may  get  "  hints  of  the  tool's  true  play." 
A  finished  world  would  be  the  death  of 
faith;  a  world  now  rising,  unfolding, 
now  being  stressed  and  moulded  into 
a  divine  shape,  and  therefore  half- 
divine,  half-devilish  to-day — that  is  the 
world  that  enables  us  to  believe  in 
God. 

"Ever  fresh  the  broad  creation, 
A  divine  improvisation, 
From  the  heart  of  God  proceeds ; 
A  single  will,  a  million  deeds." 

But  if  God  be  thus  conceived  as 
immanent  Purpose  achieving  expres- 
sion through  a  plastic  growing  world, 
is  not  the  divine  life  itself  as  yet  un- 
realized? To  put  the  question  bluntly 
and  crudely,  does  not  an  unfinished 
universe  imply  an  unfinished  God? 
In  answering  such  a  question  we  must 
say,  first  of  all,  that  even  such  a  God 
would  be  a  higher  object  of  worship 
than  the  solid  block  of  imperturbability 
that    metaphysicians    call    "  the    Abso- 


86      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

lute."  Nothing  can  possibly  be  less 
worthy  of  worship  than  a  being  from 
whom  are  excluded  by  hypothesis  all 
feeling,  thinking,  striving,  intending, 
all  love  and  hate,  all  experience  warm 
and  vital — a  majestic  simulacrum,  a 
gigantic  and  incredible  abstraction! 
We  cannot  yield  our  souls  in  affection- 
ate surrender  to  the  binomial  theorem, 
or  to  a  logical  deduction,  or  to  the 
Hegelian  Absolute.  Philosophy,  in  at- 
tempting to  exalt  God  above  all  change, 
has  depressed  him  below  all  living 
reality.  To  make  a  golden  calf,  and 
cry:  "  These  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel," 
was  indeed  a  stupid  and  degrading  per- 
formance. But  equally  futile  and 
fatuous  is  it  to  imagine  a  "  world- 
ground  "  beyond  good  and  evil,  be- 
yond approval  and  regret,  beyond  all 
joy  and  grief,  and  then  to  cry:  "This 
is  thy  God,  O  emancipated  mortal !  " 
We  can  understand  why  the  heathen 
rage,  but  not  why  philosophy  should 
imagine  so  vain  a  thing.* 

*"This   whole   false  notion  of  the  unchangeableness 
of  God  goes  back  to  a  metaphysically  false  and  aban- 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  87 

But  to  answer  the  question  more 
directly:  an  unfinished  world  does  not 
imply  an  unfinished  God,  except  as  all 
true  life  is  self-developing  and  self- 
completing.  He  is  the  same  yester- 
day, to-day,  and  forever.  But  that 
sameness  is  one  of  consistent  achieving 
of  purpose,  not  the  sameness  of  stolid 
existence.  It  is  the  sameness  of  a 
flowing  stream,  not  that  of  a  granite 
obelisk.  "  A  God  without  changeable 
inner  states,"  says  Lotze,  "  would 
answer  to  no  religious  need."  And 
the  inner  states  are  reflected  in  the 
outer  process  of  the  world.  He  is 
forever  seeking  the  same  end  through 
means  that  forever  vary,  through 
species  that  live  and  die,  through 
dynasties  that  wax  and  wane,  and 
worlds  that  are  forever  created  and 
destroyed. 

From  this  point  of  view  the  universe 

doned  notion  of  an  ever  identical  stuff  or  substance, 
and  should  no  longer  be  allowed  to  obscure  our  reli- 
gious thinking  and  living.  We  are  to  believe  in  a 
really  living  God,  who  is  in  realest  reciprocal  action 
with  all  the  finite."— Henry  Churchill  King,  "The 
Seeming  Unreality  of  the  Spiritual  Life,"  p.  73. 


88      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

is  a  continuous  divine  achievement,  and 
its  coarse  material  elements  are  ever 
becoming  more  and  more  subservient 
to  spiritual  ends.  God  is  in  the  thick 
of  man's  spiritual  fight;  as  the  He- 
brews said,  "  the  battle  is  the  Lord's." 
The  Lord  not  only  commands  the  bat- 
tle, he  shares  it.  That  there  are  real 
obstacles  to  the  divine  will  is  obvious. 
Men  may  cease  to  believe  in  Satan, 
but  the  presence  of  an  "  adversary  "  in 
human  experience  no  man  has  ever 
doubted.  The  will  of  God  is  resisted 
by  perverse  human  wills,  and  doubt- 
less by  wills  infra-human  as  well. 
The  will  of  God  is  opposed,  it  may 
be,  by  space  and  time,  by  the  in- 
ertia and  opaqueness  of  matter,  cer- 
tainly by  the  incapacity  and  frailty 
of  our  human  nature.*  At  least  we 
know  that  in  all  human  afflictions  he 
is     afflicted.       "  Unless     the     Absolute 

*  "  Evil  is  an  actual  injury  wrought  to  the  life-pur- 
pose of  God — an  actual  defeat,  for  the  time  being  at 
least,  of  his  dearest  ideal.  A  suffering  God,  bearing 
the  burden  of  the  evil  in  his  world — this  must  be  the 
conception  of  the  coming  theology." — Gerald  Birney 
Smith,  "  Biblical  Ideas  of  Atonement,"  p.  312. 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  89 

knows  what  we  know  when  we  endure 
and  wait,  when  we  love  and  struggle, 
when  we  long  and  suffer,  the  Absolute 
in  so  far  is  less  and  not  more  than 
we  are."  *  He  is  no  distant  com- 
mander viewing  the  struggle  from  a 
celestial  retreat.  The  great  apostle 
spoke  of  "  his  working  which  worketh 
in  me  mightily."  That  same  pur- 
posive working  is  present  in  the  en- 
tire Christian  church.  It  is  the  leaven 
in  all  human  governments.  It  lies 
within  the  migrations  of  peoples  and 
the  conflicts  of  nations.  It  is  a  per- 
petual "  creative  thrust,"  forcing  its 
way  through  crass  materials  and  gross 
minds,  slowly  triumphing  over  blind- 
ness and  stupidity  and  hatred,  chang- 
ing the  quality  of  human  lives  by  draw- 
ing them  into  itself,  and  moving  irre- 
sistibly toward  its  glorious  consum- 
mation. 

But  this  eternal  purpose  is  not  a 
mere  blind  striving,  a  cosmic  urge,  un- 
conscious and  unloving.  In  that  case 
the  world  would  be  a  frightful  tragedy. 

*  Royce,  "  The  World  and  the  Individual,"  I,  364- 


90      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

It  would  be  like  a  locomotive  whose 
engineer  had  pulled  the  throttle  wide 
open  and  then  deserted  the  cab.  The 
creative  force  is  not  mere  exuberant 
vitality  overflowing  in  all  directions 
at  once.  It  is  the  onward  thrust  of 
spiritual  being,  conscious,  loving,  pur- 
posive, and  sure  to  attain  its  full  ex- 
pression. Does  the  divine  purpose 
then  grow  as  it  realizes  itself  in  and 
through  the  resisting  world?  Cer- 
tainly Tennyson  thought  so  when  he 
affirmed  that  "  through  the  ages  one 
increasing  purpose  runs."  Certainly  the 
divine  purpose  as  we  here  conceive  it 
is  vastly  more  than  a  divine  "  decree. " 
It  is  infinitely  closer  to  our  lives  than 
any  "  plan "  worked  out  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world.  It  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  present  immanent  God, 
making  humanity's  cause  his  own, 
gathering  up  into  the  sweep  of  his 
great  progress  all  our  hopes  and  fears, 
and  making  us  sure  that 

"  He  that  shares  the  life  of  God 
With  him  surviveth  all." 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  91 

Does  not  this  conception  bring  God 
far    nearer    to    us    than    all    the    older 
abstractions  could  do?     Our  heart  and 
our  flesh  cry  out  for  the  living  God,— 
not  for  a  First  Cause,  or  a  metaphys- 
ical Absolute,  or  a  World-ground,  but 
for  a  living  personal  power  achieving 
the  realization  of  himself  through  the 
universe   as   we    achieve   our   own    ex- 
pression in  our  daily  task.    In  this  con- 
ception of  the  Eternal  Purpose,  slowly, 
irresistibly   fashioning  nature   and   hu- 
man   nature,    we    find    release    from    a 
thousand    difficulties.      Instead    of    in- 
finite substance,  we  have  infinite  pur- 
pose and   love.     Instead   of  discussing 
the   nature    of   the    attributes    of    God 
in  the  mediaeval  way,  we  seek  to  learn 
in   what  way   God   is   moving,   and   to 
move  with  him.     Instead  of  a  change- 
less spectator  of  a  finished  world,  we 
see    God    forthputting    infinite    energy 
and  sharing  in  our  toil — "my   Father 
worketh    hitherto    and    I    work."      In- 
stead of  a  God  who  once  entered  the 
world  by  signs  and  wonders  and  then 
retired,  we  have  a  God  who  can  never 


92      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

enter,  because  he  constantly  fills  the 
world  he  constantly  creates.  Instead 
of  an  external  superintendent  and 
governor,  we  have  an  internal  spiritual 
presence  from  whom  no  man  can  flee. 
Instead  of  a  self-centred  and  self- 
sufficing  ruler,  we  have  an  immanent 
personal  spirit,  whose  essence  is  not 
contemplation  but  activity,  whose  un- 
folding purpose  is  the  explanation  of 
all  that  is  and  the  assurance  that  the 
universe  shall  not  fail. 

When,  therefore,  a  man  rises  in 
spirit  to  declare:  "I  believe  in  God 
the  Father  Almighty,"  he  is  not  merely 
reciting  a  creed,  he  is  laying  the  foun- 
dations of  a  worthful  life.  He  is  not 
affirming  that  he  knows  anything 
about  cause  or  substance  or  infinity. 
He  is  affirming  that  his  own  experience 
has  convinced  him  that  there  is  mean- 
ing at  the  heart  of  the  world;  that 
a  spiritual  presence,  conscious,  pur- 
posive, personal,  pervades  all  nature 
and  all  history.  Such  a  faith  co-ordi- 
nates and  vitalizes  all  our  broken  at- 
tempts at  being  good  and  doing  good. 


THE  MEANING  OF  GOD  93 

It  nerves  us  for  the  moral  battle. 
It  irradiates  drudgery  and  redeems 
failure.  On  the  darkest  day  it  enables 
us    to   say: 

"O  living  Will,  that  shalt  endure 
When  all  that  seems  shall  suffer  shock, 
Rise  in  the  spiritual  rock, 
Flow  through  our  deeds  and  make  them  pure." 


LECTURE  III 

THE   BASIS   AND   TEST 
OF   CHARACTER 


There    exists    one    supreme,    typical,    perfect 
Person,    and   there   also   exist   innumerable    in- 
cipient adolescent  persons,  getting  their  person- 
ality as  they  go,  growing  up  into  his  likeness. 
William  Newton  Clarke 

Right  and  wrong  are  determined  for  us  not 
so  much  by  a  standard  established  by  the  past, 
as  by  a  purpose  affecting  the  future. 

William  Adams  Brown 


LECTURE  III 

THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF 
CHARACTER 

WHAT  is  a  good  man?  Our 
generation  is  urgently  de- 
manding a  fresh  answer  to 
this  old  question.  We  have  grown  a 
little  uncertain  about  our  old  classifica- 
tions, and  question  our  ability  to  run  a 
sharp  dividing  line  between  the  sheep 
and  the  goats.  The  definitions  of  the 
past  are  plainly  inadequate  to  the 
present  situation.  The  Hebrew  Psalm- 
ist pronounced  happy  the  man  who 
could  seize  Babylonian  children  and 
"  dash  them  against  the  stones."  The 
ideal  man  of  the  fourth  century  was 
represented  by  Simeon  Stylites,  stand- 
ing erect  on  his  pillar  through  rain  and 
sun.  The  ideal  of  Bunyan  was  a  flee- 
ing pilgrim  bent  on  saving  himself 
from  doom.     All  of  tfrese  conceptions 

97 


98      WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

have  in  them  elements  of  truth,  but 
they  are  pathetically  partial  and  have 
been  at  times  tragically  misleading. 

But  it  is  not  simply  the  ancient 
standards  that  fail  to  satisfy;  the 
standards  of  a  half-century  ago  seem 
almost  equally  out  of  date.  The  good 
man  of  the  year  1850  could  do  a  multi- 
tude of  things  which  now  shock  our 
moral  sense,  and  are  forbidden  by 
statute-law.  The  oldest  meeting- 
house now  standing  in  the  City  of 
Providence  was  erected  partly  by  the 
proceeds  of  a  lottery,  to  which  neither 
state  nor  church  felt  any  serious  objec- 
tion, and  gambling  for  charity  has  en- 
dured down  to  our  own  day.  New 
standards  have  in  our  time  created 
hundreds  of  new  crimes,  and  have 
enormously  enlarged  the  sphere  of 
law,  and  so  increased  the  possibility 
of  breaking  it.  The  result  of  the  "  in- 
surance investigations  "  of  the  last  dec- 
ade has  been  to  pillory  before  the 
public  men  whose  conduct  was  pre- 
viously regarded  as  quite  in  accord 
with    accepted    standards    of    business 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    99 

morality.  For  the  last  ten  years 
America  has  been  branding  the  men  it 
formerly  crowned,  and  investigating 
and  exposing  what  it  formerly  called 
"  success. "  The  "  pure  food  law  "  has 
turned  the  daily  procedure  of  thou- 
sands of  men  into  a  statutory  crime, 
just  as  elevating  any  standard  creates 
glaring  deficiencies.  We  no  longer 
allow  industrial  corporations  to  make 
contributions  to  a  political  campaign; 
we  demand  publicity  where  once  we 
advised  secrecy;  we  compel  the  in- 
spection of  milk;  we  order  the  carry- 
ing of  lights  on  a  moving  vehicle  at 
night,  and  we  affirm  the  principle  of 
employers'  liability  even  when  it  con- 
travenes the  common  law  of  centu- 
ries. The  almost  innumerable  statutes 
passed  annually  by  our  legislatures 
are  simply  the  enactment  of  the  novel 
demands  of  the  modern  conscience. 
Each  new  law  regarding  marriage  and 
divorce,  or  the  liquor  traffic,  or  the 
sale  of  firearms,  or  the  building  of 
tenements,  or  the  licensing  of  motor- 
cars, is  the  registration  of  a  new  ideal 


100    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

— sometimes  a  mistaken  and  blunder- 
ing ideal — of  what  a  good  man  should 
be  amid  the  complex  relations  of  mod- 
ern society.  None  of  the  great  moral 
leaders  of  the  past  could  satisfy  the 
standards  of  the  modern  church,  or 
even  of  the  ordinary  police-court. 
Those  leaders  may  have  lived  up  to 
their  own  standards  far  more  bravely 
and  successfully  than  we  live  up  to 
ours;  but  their  standards  are  now 
antiquated  and  are  relegated  to  the 
ethical  museum. 

But  have  we,  who  call  ourselves 
"  foremost  in  the  files  of  time,"  now 
reached  a  height  where  we  can  so 
define  a  good  man  that  our  definition 
will  last?  Will  our  children  be  any 
more  content  with  our  standards  than 
we  are  with  the  standards  of  1850? 
Certainly  we  cannot  define  a  "  good  " 
watch  in  that  way,  or  a  good  battle- 
ship, or  a  good  picture.  The  once 
good  watch  is  now  a  curiosity;  the  once 
good  battleship — if  it  ever  was  good 
— is  now  scrap-iron;  the  good  picture 
of  Giotto  or  Cimabue  registers  a  stagre 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    IOI 

iii  the  development  of  art.  If  we,  then, 
are  called  upon  to  describe  the  ideal 
man,  can  we  give  a  bill  of  particu- 
lars, a  permanent  inventory  of  virtues, 
a  code  of  rules  to  be  held  binding 
semper  et  ubique  et  ab  omnibus?  To  ask 
the  question  is  to  answer  it.  What- 
ever set  of  rules  we  lay  down  in  this 
year  of  grace,  whatever  formulas  of 
personal  or  social  virtue  we  announce, 
our  grand-children  will  regard  them  as 
we  regard  the  ethical  code  which  sanc- 
tioned the  duel  or  the  persecution  of 
heretics,  or  the  sale  of  indulgences,  or 
the  former  maintenance  of  distilleries 
by  leaders  in  the  New  England  church. 
Shall  we,  then,  admit  that  all  stand- 
ards are  passing  illusions?  Must  we 
surrender  the  moral  imperative  be- 
cause of  its  varying  interpretation? 
Multitudes  of  men  are  feeling  to-day 
the  relaxation  of  the  old  standards, 
and  have  found  no  new  standards 
which  can  compel  respect  and  obedi- 
ence. They  have  scoffed  at  the  nar- 
row virtues  of  the  psalm-singing  Puri- 
tans, at  the  parochial  piety  of  the  New 


102    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

England  deacon;  but  they  have  no 
other  ideal  by  which  to  live  and  die, 
no  inner  compulsion  stronger  than  the 
love  of  pleasure.  Ethical  confusion 
has  meant  for  our  generation  moral 
debility.  The  flux  of  standards  has 
brought  about  flabbiness  of  intention. 
How  shall  we  recover  the  magnificent 
moral  intensity  of  our  fathers?  If  we 
cannot  now  define  the  good  man  with 
the  ease  and  assurance  and  finality  of 
a  former  generation,  what  can  we  do? 
We  can  substitute,  in  place  of  the 
old  static  idea  of  formulated  duties,  the 
dynamic  idea  of  purposeful  character. 
We  can  lead  men  away  from  goodness 
conceived  as  the  precise  observance 
of  a  code  of  rules  to  goodness  con- 
ceived as  the  steady  pursuit  of  an  ideal. 
We  can  ponder  the  deep  insight  of  the 
saying  of  Paul  that  "  law  is  not  made 
for  a  good  man,"  and  we  can  proceed 
to  show  that  "  what  the  law  could  not 
do,"  is  done  wherever  Christianity 
goes,  by  the  compelling  vision  of  a 
progressive  and  unfolding  ideal.  We 
may    readily    admit    and     insist    that 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    103 

moral  rules,  enforced  by  pains  and 
penalties,  have  their  place  in  dealing 
with  children,  or  with  childish  and  im- 
mature races,  or  with  crude  and  child- 
ish minds  of  our  own  race.  But  we 
must  lead  all  men  steadily  away  from 
the  idea  of  external  obedience  to  a 
prescribed  and  particularized  code,  into 
the  thought  of  the  inner  conquest 
of  a  moral  ideal.  We  must  turn  the 
thought  of  men  away  from  the  cata- 
logues of  deeds  to  be  done,  to  the 
thought  of  a  righteous  purpose  which 
alone  gives  to  deeds  any  meaning  and 
value.  To  carry  men  through  this 
dangerous  transition — from  conformity 
to  a  code  into  loyalty  to  an  ideal,  from 
outer  observance  into  overmastering 
purpose — that  is  the  ethical  task  of 
our    generation. 

The  idea  of  goodness  as  obedience 
to  a  code  is  a  very  ancient  one.  It 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of 
the  ancient  Greeks.  Greece  had  no 
decalogue,  and  felt  no  need  of  any 
divinely  formulated  law.  The  Greek 
language    contains    no    word    exactly 


104    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

corresponding  to  our  word  "  duty," 
and  Greek  philosophy  had  little  to  say 
regarding  moral  obligation.  Plato  has 
clearly  pictured  his  magistrate-philoso- 
pher, and  Aristotle  has  carefully  de- 
scribed his  "  great-souled  "  hero.  But 
neither  Plato  nor  Aristotle,  nor  any  of 
the  Greeks,  conceived  virtue  as  obedi- 
ence, but  rather  as  knowledge.  They 
assumed  that  any  man  who  knew  the 
right  would  choose  to  do  it.  The  idea 
of  virtue  as  obedience  we  find  in  the 
oriental  religions — in  the  code  of  Ham- 
murabi, in  the  maxims  of  Confucius,  in 
the  explicit  directions  of  Buddha,  and 
above  all  in  the  austere  morality  of  the 
Hebrews.  The  oriental  mind  has  every- 
where conceived  true  life  as  subjec- 
tion to  authority.  The  religions  of 
Asia  have  been  filled  with  an  awful 
reverence,  a  vision  of  sovereignty,  and 
their  summons  to  mankind  has  been 
a  summons  to  obey.  It  is  Hebraism 
that  has  given  to  modern  nations — 
especially  to  the  Teutonic  peoples, 
closely  allied  in  temperament  to  the 
Hebrews — the  sense  of  the  majesty  of 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    105 

the  moral  law.  Moses  affirming  that 
his  "  ten  words "  had  come  from 
heaven,  was  the  direct  ancestor  of 
Kant  affirming  the  splendour  of  the 
"  starry  heavens  above  and  the  moral 
law  within. " 

Our  Puritan  fathers  always  exalted 
the  legal  portions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment at  the  expense  of  the  prophetic 
messages.  In  the  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  as  they  found  it,  the  law- 
books came  first.  The  origin  of  such 
books  was  attended  by  extraordinary 
portents,  and  detailed  legislation  sur- 
rounded Israel's  life  with  a  fine  net- 
work of  ceremonial  regulation.  More- 
over the  legal  code  was  largely  nega- 
tive in  form,  presenting  holiness  chiefly 
as  abstinence,  as  avoidance  of  con- 
tamination. Ceremonial  purity  and 
moral  goodness  were  closely  associated 
in  the  Mosaic  law,  and — as  to-day  in 
Hinduism — virtue  consisted  largely  in 
keeping  away  from  things.  "  Come  ye 
out  from  among  them,  be  ye  separate," 
was  the  characteristic  demand  of  the 
Old  Testament  morality. 


106    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

And  the  Puritanism  of  our  English- 
speaking  fathers  was  simply  a  develop- 
ment of  the  Hebrew  idea  of  goodness. 
It  was  mainly  a  protest,  at  a  time 
when  protest  was  deeply  needed.  It 
registered  the  perpetual  protest  of 
serious,  godly  souls  against  an  easy 
and  "  unexamined  life."  But  its  weak- 
ness was  in  its  contentment  with  nega- 
tion and  rejection.  The  line  between 
the  church  and  the  world  a  century 
ago  in  New  England  was  almost  al- 
ways drawn  according  to  abstinence 
from  so-called  "  amusements."  He 
who  indulged  in  such  things  was  of  the 
"world";  he  who  conscientiously  re- 
frained -witt  prima  facie  of  the  "  church." 
The  particular  sin  against  which  we 
were  most  stringently  warned  in  our 
New  England  childhood  was  that  of 
attending  the  "  circus."  Just  why  the 
circus  was  fraught  with  moral  peril  we 
could  not  discover,  nor  can  we  dis- 
cover to-day.  We  only  knew  that  the 
annual  parade  through  the  village 
streets,  the  annual  blaze  of  colour  and 
blare  of  trumpets,  the  annual  alluring 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    1 07 

expanse  of  tent-cloth — all  was  tabooed 
as  leading  directly  to  the  infernal 
regions.  Even  to-day — so  long  do  our 
sentiments  survive  our  judgments — 
even  to-day  I  cannot  carry  a  child  to 
see  the  performing  beasts  without 
the  uneasy  stirrings  of  old-time  com- 
punction as  I  pass  under  the  flapping 
tent-cloth!  It  is  a  pathetic  fact  that 
the  main  strength  of  the  church  was 
often  spent  in  the  protest  against  mer- 
riment, rather  than  in  the  summons  to 
ethical  action. 

In  the  Puritan  college  the  curiously 
negative  character  of  the  early  regula- 
tions is  familiar  to  all  students  of  the 
history  of  education.  The  prohibitions 
were  so  minute  as  to  suggest  forms  of 
insubordination  which  youthful  minds 
otherwise  might  never  have  thought 
of.  Even  forty  years  ago  the  struggle 
of  two  college  classes  for  a  cane,  or 
the  attempt  to  build  a  bonfire  on  the 
campus  was  punished  far  more  severely 
than  any  real  lapse  in  scholarship  or 
character.  Thus  college  immorality 
was    largely    an    artificial    creation,    a 


108    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

technical  disobedience  to  arbitrary 
statutes,  rather  than  disloyalty  to  any 
inner  voice,  and  those  students  who 
underwent  college  "  discipline  "  often 
became  in  after  life  the  moral  leaders 
of  their  time. 

All  American  education  has  been 
dominated  by  the  idea  of  obedience  to 
rules  as  the  essential  thing  in  character 
formation.  The  good  boy  has  been 
the  one  who  does  not  make  a  noise,  or 
disturb  others,  or  play  truant.  And 
after  school-days  are  over,  the  good 
citizen  has  been  thought  of  as  one  who 
does  not  injure  others  in  their  legiti- 
mate pursuits.  Our  statute  books  are 
rilled  with  prohibitions.  Freedom  is 
conceived  as  doing  what  one  pleases, 
provided  one  does  not  injure  others. 
Our  courts  are  filled  with  the  legal 
protests  of  individuals  against  the  in- 
jurious acts  of  their  neighbours,  and  the 
function  of  the  judge  and  jury,  of  the 
jail  and  the  prison  and  the  fine,  is  not 
to  encourage  human  action,  but  effect- 
ively to  restrain  it.  Thus  the  legally 
praiseworthy     man     is     the     harmless 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    109 

man.  He  may  have  done  nothing  for 
his  neighbour,  his  family,  his  nation; 
he  may  be  colourless,  cold,  self- 
absorbed,  morose.  But  if  he  has  ab- 
stained from  what  the  law  condemns, 
he  is  a  correct  and  blameless  citizen. 
He  is  not  only  "law-honest";  he  is 
law-pure,  law-neighbourly,  law-admi- 
rable. 

Thus  in  church  and  school,  in  court 
and  life,  the  old  Hebraic  conception 
of  the  good  man  as  the  obedient  man, 
of  virtue  as  conformity  to  the  authori- 
tative code,  came  to  have  well-nigh 
universal  acceptance.  Is  this  a  truly 
Christian  attitude?  Is  conformity  to 
statutory  requirements  the  ideal  and 
test  of  goodness? 

For  answer  we  must  go  back  to  the 
ethics  of  Jesus.  If  we  find  him  dis- 
satisfied with  the  divinely  given  moral 
code  of  his  church  and  his  nation,  if 
he  sought  to  deliver  men  from  the 
ancestral  yoke  of  a  stereotyped  con- 
formity, it  may  be  the  ominous  moral 
rebellion  of  our  age  will  simply  drive 


110    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

us  back  to  a  new  appreciation  of  good- 
ness as  understood  by  Jesus. 

Christianity  came  into  Palestine 
with  one  great  command :  "  Repent 
ye";  or  as  we  should  translate  it: 
"  Change  your  mind."  It  was  not  a 
change  of  garments,  or  opinions,  or 
customs,  or  rules,  that  the  prophet 
from  Nazareth  demanded,  but  a 
change  of  mind,  of  temper,  of  attitude, 
of  disposition.  Jesus  issued  no  index 
of  mala  prohibita.  He  did  not  propose 
to  uplift  society  by  enlarging  the 
statute-book.  He  gave  no  new  com- 
mandment, except  "  that  ye  love  one 
another  " — a  command  magnificently 
devoid  of  all  detail,  a  command  to  feel 
rather  than  to  do.  He  issued  no  list 
of  old  things  to  be  avoided,  or  new 
practices  to  be  laboriously  maintained. 
He  gave  no  directions  regarding  at- 
tendance at  synagogue  or  temple,  re- 
garding fasting  or  tithing  or  making 
prayers  or  abstaining  from  meats  or 
feasts  or  festivals.  He  was  perplex- 
ingly,  amazingly  silent  on  the  prohibi- 
tions of  the  national  religion,   on  the 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    HI 

whole  Levitical  legislation,  on  the 
practices  which  for  the  church  of  Judea 
constituted  piety.  His  clearest  com- 
ment on  the  abstinences  so  popular  in 
his  day  was  this :  "  Give  alms  of  such 
things  as  ye  have,  and  behold  all 
things  are  clean  unto  you." 

No  wonder  his  teaching  seemed  to 
undermine  morality.  A  teacher  who 
reduced  the  ten  commandments  to 
two,  who  minimized  or  disregarded 
the  entire  Old  Testament  ceremonial, 
who  allowed  sinners  and  lepers  to 
touch  him,  who  lodged  with  publicans, 
who  worked  on  the  Sabbath  day,  who 
called  long  prayers  "  a  pretence,"  and 
the  moral  leaders  of  his  day  "  hypo- 
crites " — is  it  any  wonder  he  was 
feared  and  hated?  The  objection  to 
Jesus,  made  by  the  national  church  of 
Judea,  was  not  theological,  it  was 
moral.  It  was  not  his  opinions,  but 
his  character  that  men  hated.  They 
did  not  want  to  be  such  a  man  as  he 
was;  they  disliked  and  spurned  the 
kind  of  goodness  he  embodied.  If 
that  was  goodness — that  emancipation 


112    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

from  venerated  regulations,  that  in- 
dependence of  the  settled  code,  that 
elusive  spirituality  claiming  that  sacred 
laws  were  made  for  men  and  not  men 
for  laws — if  that  was  goodness,  then 
they  would  have  none  of  it.  If  the 
foundations  were  destroyed,  what 
could  the  legally  righteous  do? 

But  Jesus  was  content  to  overlook 
many  things  that  he  might  emphasize 
the  one  thing  needful — a  change  of 
mind.  He  did  not  mean  to  insist  on 
punishment  for  the  past.  The  trans- 
lation of  "  repent  ye "  by  the  words 
"  do  penance "  in  the  Douay  version 
is  more  than  mistranslation — it  is  a 
gross  perversion  of  our  Lord's  entire 
attitude  toward  human  sin  and  its  for- 
giveness. By  repentance  Christ  does 
not  mean  mere  useless  brooding  over 
a  wrongful  past.  He  would  have  us 
look  at  the  sins  of  yesterday  just  long 
enough  to  recognize  and  repudiate 
them.  Mere  mourning  over  yesterday 
is  a  devitalizing  process,  incapacitating 
one  for  present  service. 

But    Jesus    strikes    at    the    roots    of 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    1 13 

character  in  his  demand  for  a  "  change 
of  mind."  The  modern  science  of 
criminology  too  often  forgets  this,  in 
demanding  simply  change  of  environ- 
ment. The  criminologists  have  done 
excellent  service  in  insisting  that  we 
must  do  more  than  punish  evil-doers 
with  dull  mechanical  uniformity;  that 
we  must  not  "  fit  the  punishment  to 
the  crime/'  but  rather  fit  it  to  the 
criminal.  But  what  is  fitting  to  the 
criminal?  Not  chiefly  better  food  or 
housing,  not  merely  new  rules  and 
regulations,  but  a  new  purpose — a 
change  of  mind.  That  prison  is  bad — 
though  it  be  hygienically  perfect — 
which  does  not  focus  all  its  effort  on 
a  psychological  and  moral  change  as 
the    only   guarantee    for   the   future. 

And  all  schools  and  colleges,  and  all 
modern  society  must  come  to  accept 
Christ's  doctrine  that  the  essential 
need  of  man  is  not  more  regulation 
but  more  purpose.  The  rules  of  the 
household  are  necessary  for  children, 
but  we  must  as  soon  as  possible  teach 


114    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

the  children  to  do  without  them.  A 
life  of  repression  is  never  as  strong 
or  as  safe  as  a  life  of  expression.  The 
aim  of  the  school  or  college  must  be 
to  bring  about  as  soon  as  possible 
student  self-government.  No  govern- 
ment is  really  for  the  people  unless  it 
is  by  the  people.  The  aim  of  the  state 
is  not  to  make  the  people  rely  on  the 
mayor  or  the  governor  for  help,  but  to 
make  the  officials  rely  upon  the  people. 
As  De  Tocqueville  said:  "No  phi- 
losopher's stone  of  a  constitution  can 
produce  golden  conduct  out  of  leaden 
instincts."  No  laws  against  fraud  will 
permanently  restrain  a  nation  that 
wishes  to  cheat.  No  stricter  marriage 
laws  will  uplift  a  people  that  really 
longs  for  freedom  in  divorce.  No  laws 
against  lottery  and  race-track  will  en- 
noble a  society  that  prefers  gambling 
to  industry.  No  regulations  against 
Sunday  desecration  will  hinder  a  so- 
ciety that  really  wishes  a  day  of  labour 
and  sport.  High  above  all  our  legis- 
lative devices,  and  our  ingenious  re- 
forms by  act  of  Congress,  sounds  still 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    n5 

the   clear   summons   of   the   Nazarene: 
"  Change  your  mind !  " 

This  demand  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity found  new  utterance  and  un- 
folding fifteen  centuries  later  in  the 
Reformers'  doctrine  of  "  justification 
by  faith."  No  other  doctrine  has  been 
the  source  of  so  much  misrepresenta- 
tion, and  no  other  has  brought  greater 
moral  strength  and  gladness.  Justifi- 
cation by  faith  is  something  vastly  more 
than  a  forensic  acquittal;  something 
vastly  more  important  than  a  matter 
of  celestial  book-keeping.  No  theolog- 
ical fiction  can  produce  strength  in  the 
moral  life.  No  teaching  of  the  divine 
willingness  to  reckon  essentially  bad 
men  as  good  men  can  bring  permanent 
gain  to  humanity  or  honour  to  God. 
"  To  justify,"  whatever  it  may  mean 
according  to  the  lexicons,  surely  does 
not  mean  to  blink  moral  distinctions 
or  confuse  good  and  evil.  It  does  not 
mean  to  uplift  man  by  degrading  God. 
Justification  by  faith  is  simply  classi- 
fication by  fundamental  intention  and 
tendency.      It  is  the  declaration  that  he 


Il6    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

who  in  the  central  chambers  of  his 
soul  is  already  aspiring  toward  good- 
ness is  a  good  man,  whatever  his  outer 
attainment  may  be.  It  is  the  clear 
apprehension  and  affirmation,  that  he 
who  steadily  intends  righteousness  is 
righteous,  and  should  be  classed  with 
righteous  men.  Never  was  there  a 
falser  proverb  than  that  which  slurs 
all  good  intentions.  The  way  to 
heaven  is  paved  with  good  intentions. 
Mere  languid  desire  to  be  somehow 
better  indeed  means  little.  That  may 
simply  mark  "  the  unlit  lamp  and  the 
ungirt  loin.',  But  when  in  the  centre 
of  the  personality  a  man  whole-heart- 
edly chooses  the  right,  the  outer  con- 
formity to  the  inner  choice  cannot  be 
long  delayed.  Kant  was  right  when 
he  said  that  "  the  only  good  thing  in 
the  universe  is  a  good  will."  The 
doctrine  of  Luther,  so  easily  misunder- 
stood and  perverted,  is  really  the  bul- 
wark of  moral  reform,  the  hope  of 
every  soul  struggling  on  life's  moral 
battlefield.  A  good  man  is  one  who 
steadily   intends   to   be   good.      Out   of 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    1 17 

that  root-intention  will  surely  grow 
all  the  fair  fruits  of  individual  and  na- 
tional character. 

And  as  to  Luther's  age  came  that 
great  insight,  so  to  our  own  age  has 
come  fresh  perception  of  the  value  of 
the  Christian  ideal.  "  The  new  feel- 
ing for  Christ  "  which  Principal  Fair- 
bairn  finds  in  our  age,  is  really  a  new 
realization  of  the  necessity  of  replac- 
ing codes  by  personal  ideals.  The  cry 
"  back  to  Christ "  is  not  a  true  ex- 
pression of  the  Christian  aspiration  of 
our  time.  We  cannot  turn  back  the 
twentieth  century  to  the  outlook  of 
the  first  century.  "  Forward  to 
Christ  "  would  be  a  better  battle-cry, 
since  his  ideal  still  marches  far  in  the 
distance  before  us. 

The  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  A. 
D.  70  was  a  benefit  to  civilization  and 
religion.  It  was  the  destruction  of 
the  entire  Levitical  legislation  as  a 
practicable  scheme  of  life.  And  the 
trampling  of  Palestine  by  the  armies 
of  Titus   and   Cceur  de   Lion  and   Na- 


Il8    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

poleon,  obliterating  the  shrines  where 
Christian  faith  might  linger  and  stag- 
nate, was  a  boon  to  all  religion  and 
ethics.  God  has  permitted  marching 
hosts  to  pass  over  Palestine,  as  a 
moist  sponge  is  drawn  over  a  school- 
boy's slate,  wiping  out  the  paths  where 
Jesus  walked,  the  villages  where  he 
taught,  the  very  hills  where  he 
prayed,  so  as  to  render  it  forever 
impossible  for  us  to  attempt  the 
mechanical  repetition  of  his  earthly 
life.  Christian  history  cries  to  Chris- 
tian ethics:  "Why  seek  ye  the  living 
among  the   dead?" 

The  external  imitation  of  Christ  in 
garb,  or  custom,  or  ceremony,  or 
verbal  formula,  is  futile.  Obedience 
to  commandments,  even  though  they 
be  his  commandments,  is  not  enough. 
It  is  rather  liberation  from  every  code, 
and  growth  toward  an  ideal,  that  we 
need;  in  St.  Paul's  phrase:  "that  ye 
may  grow  up  into  him."  Christian 
goodness  is  not  the  goodness  of  a  copy- 
book, but  that  of  a  growing  tree  whose 
seed    is    in    itself.      The    tree    develops 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    1 19 

not  by  imitation  of  the  parent  tree, 
but  by  participation  in  its  life.  Our 
goal  is  not  conformity  to  a  law,  even 
though  it  be  written  with  the  finger 
of  God.  Goodness  is  to  intend  what 
God  intends;  it  is  to  go  as  he  is  going. 
It  is  not  to  act  as  Judson  or  Living- 
stone or  Simon  Peter  or  Jesus  acted. 
It  is  to  cherish  steadily  the  purpose  ex- 
hibited in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  find 
the  current  of  our  whole  desire  min- 
gling with  his.  Such  an  ethics  is  uni- 
versal; it  will  bear  transportation.  It 
may  constrain  us  to  refuse  to  live 
where  Jesus  lived,  or  worship  as  he 
worshipped,  or  act  as  he  acted — all  in 
the  supreme  desire  to  be  what  he  was. 
Thus  the  Christian  life  becomes  no 
servile  conformity  to  an  oriental  code 
of  law.  It  rather  becomes  steady  ap- 
proximation to  an  ethical  ideal  which 
the  dispassionate  judgment  of  the 
world  has  pronounced  unsurpassed 
and  unsurpassable.  Even  the  critical 
mind  of  John  Stuart  Mill  was  con- 
strained to  admit:  "Nor  even  now 
would   it  be  easy,   even   for  an   unbe- 


120    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

liever,  to  find  a  better  translation  of 
the  rule  of  virtue  from  the  abstract 
into  the  concrete,  than  the  endeavour 
so  to  live  that  Christ  would  approve 
our  life.^  * 

If  what  we  have  said  be  true,  it  is 
apparent  that  goodness  is  a  form  of 
energy,  and  that  the  highest  gift  of 
Christianity  is  its  dynamic.  When 
Christ  came  into  the  world  force  was 
everywhere  supreme,  and  Christianity, 
in  protesting  against  the  reign  of 
brute  force,  was  compelled  to  exalt  the 
virtues  of  sympathy  and  pity  and  love. 
But  we  are  totally  wrong  if  we 
imagine  that  Christian  goodness  is 
therefore  a  passive  quality.  Tolstoi, 
with  all  his  flashes  of  wonderful  in- 
sight, misreads  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  as  well  as  the  whole  life  of 
Christ,  when  he  makes  non-resistance 
the  core  of  Christian  ethics.  We  need 
not  quote  specific  examples  of  our 
Lord's  militant  opposition  to  evil — 
like  the  wielding  of  the  whip  in  the 
temple,    and    the   withering   rebuke    to 

*  "  Essays  on  Religion,"  p.  254. 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    121 

the  soldiers,  so  that  "  they  went  back- 
ward and  fell  to  the  ground."  We 
need  only  to  remember  that  his  entire 
life  on  earth  was  one  long  resistance 
to  evil  enthroned  and  defiant.  But  it 
was  not  the  cheap  physical  resistance 
which  depends  on  fist  and  sword.  It 
was  not  the  futile  anger  which  madly 
wields  the  axe  or  the  bludgeon  and 
then  dies  away.  It  is  the  higher  and 
nobler  resistance,  which  is  strong 
enough  to  disdain  the  mailed  fist,  and 
to  rely  on  spiritual  powers  alone.  It 
does  not  depend  on  the  bayonet,  be- 
cause its  weapons  are  sharper  and 
more  poignant.  It  does  not  trust  in 
musket  or  cannon,  because  it  is 
"  mighty  through  God  to  the  pulling 
down  of  strongholds."  Christian  non- 
resistance  is  the  rejection  of  modes 
of  warfare  that  are  futile,  in  favour  of 
a  telling  and  life-long  fight  against 
evil.  Christianity  exalts  not  the  pass- 
ive virtues, — for  there  are  none;  all 
virtue  is  active  and  achieving.  It  ex- 
alts the  silent  virtues,  which  rely  not 
on    bayonets    or    battleships,    but    on 


122    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

that  irresistible  spiritual  energy  which 
overcomes  evil  with  good. 

Our  strenuous  occidental  life  cannot 
therefore  reject  the  Christian  ethics,  as 
oriental  and  mystical.  For  it  is  Chris- 
tianity itself  that  insists  on  action  as 
the  test  of  character,  and  emphasizes 
volition  as  the  heart  of  the  personality. 
Doubtless  there  are  some  sayings  in 
the  teaching  of  our  Lord  that  only  the 
oriental  mind  can  fully  appreciate. 
Such  sayings  as,  "  Take  no  thought 
for  the  morrow,''  or  "  Lay  not  up 
for  yourselves  treasures  upon  earth," 
are  not  easily  entered  into  by  men 
who  daily  walk  past  banks  and  mills 
and  department-stores.  But  the  bulk 
of  Christ's  teaching  was  so  far  opposed 
to  his  race  and  his  time  that  it  appeals 
to  us  with  far  greater  cogency  than 
to  dwellers  in  Capernaum  or  Nazareth. 
We  are  just  beginning  to  appreciate 
its  truly  dynamic  and  almost  revolu- 
tionary quality.  Mr.  John  Morley 
speaks  of  the  "  volcanic  elements  that 
slumber  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount." 
Those    volcanic,    cataclysmic    elements 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    123 

are  to  be  found  all  through  our  Lord's 
teaching.  The  national  leaders  around 
him  were  not  deceived  as  to  the  dan- 
ger. They  were  disciples  of  the  status 
quo,  and  Jesus  was  not.  They  wanted 
to  prolong;  he  wanted  to  regenerate. 
They  wanted  more  statutes,  more 
obedience;  he  wants  more  achieving 
victorious  life.  Christian  virtue  pass- 
ive? ^  It  is  the  most  active,  restless, 
aspiring,  achieving  type  of  virtue  the 
world  has  ever  seen. 

Such     an     ideal     of     goodness      is 
peculiarly  fitted  to  cope  with  our  rest- 
less,  ambitious   western   life.      Modern 
life  places  special  emphasis  on  action, 
and   on   the   executive   type   of  charac- 
ter.    The  so-called  industrial  virtues — 
fidelity,    promptness,    truth,    power    of 
initiative— are  exalted  in  all  occidental 
nations.       These     virtues     are     indeed 
easily    prostituted    to    the    greed     for 
gain;    but    they    are    also    easily    har- 
nessed   into    the   service   of   the    King- 
dom.    The  virtues  of  punctuality  and 
order    and    cooperation,     of    accuracy 
and   loyalty— those   virtues   which   our 


124    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

civilization  forces  to  the  front  and  on 
which  it  depends — are  all  qualities 
with  a  religious  basis.  It  is  not 
strange  that  many  of  Christ's  parables 
are  illustrations  drawn  from  the  world 
of  finance  and  trade — the  banker,  the 
steward,  the  owner  of  the  vineyard, — 
a  world  in  which  Jesus  found  moral 
principles  clearly  at  work,  a  world 
which  he  would  claim  as  a  portion  of 
his  Kingdom.  America  is  the  home 
of  an  industrial  civilization,  setting 
peculiar  value  on  an  active  type  of 
character.  But  the  Christian  ideal 
has  set  before  us  true  life  as  more 
than  contemplation,  more  than  knowl- 
edge,— as  victorious  and  achieving 
purpose. 

The  good  man  is,  then,  one  who 
faces  the  future.  He  does  not  hark 
back  to  finished  standards,  but  reaches 
forth  to  unfinished  ideals.  He  be- 
lieves he  can  in  some  measure  control 
the  future,  in  his  own  life  and  in  the 
lives  of  others.  He  feels  the  romance 
of  goodness,  its  challenge  and  summons 
to  adventure.     A  life  like  that  of  Sam- 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    125 

uel  Gridley  Howe,  who  gave  himself 
to  the  emancipation  of  Greece,  to  the 
teaching  of  imprisoned  Laura  Bridg- 
man,  and  to  the  freeing  of  the  Ameri- 
can slave,  is  a  life  that  shows  us  the 
romantic  career  which  awaits  all  abso- 
lute surrender  to  an  ideal.  A  life 
such  as  that  of  Chinese  Gordon  or 
Florence  Nightingale  demonstrates 
that  goodness  is  interesting — and  if  it 
is  not,  it  cannot  long  command  us. 
The  newspaper  reporters  seem  to  be- 
lieve that  only  the  abnormal  is  in- 
teresting. They  are  right;  but  they 
forget  that  the  abnormal  is  not  always 
the  tragic  or  the  hideous.  There  is 
an  abnormal  courage,  an  abnormal 
devotion,  an  abnormal  faith — seen  in 
the  lives  of  apostles  and  prophets,  and 
these  qualities,  wrought  into  deeds,  are 
the  most  interesting  elements  in  the 
story  of  the  world.  Goodness  of  the 
Christian  type — which  means  heroism, 
adventure,  abandon — is  the  most  fas- 
cinating thing  on  earth,  and  the  lives 
of  the  Knights  of  the  Holy  Grail  have 
more  of  thrilling  episodes  than  all  the 


126    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

lives  of  pirates  and  buccaneers  since 
the  world  began. 

But  some  of  you  who  have  followed 
me  thus  far,  feel,  if  I  mistake  not,  a 
certain  misgiving.  You  say:  "I  want 
to  accept  this  view  of  loyalty  to  an 
ideal  rather  than  submission  to  a  code. 
I  feel  its  attraction,  its  emancipation. 
But  where  is  its  imperative?  It  may  be 
that  the  old  law-books  have  gone;  that 
the  thunders  of  Sinai  have  ceased; 
that  we  no  longer  are  moved  by  re- 
ward and  penalty.  But  what  shall 
move  our  generation  with  command- 
ing voice?  What  power  shall  stand 
over  our  heedless  age,  and  compel 
obedience?  What  can  take  the  place 
of  the  authoritative  and  explicit  com- 
mands of  our  childhood?  The  doc- 
trine of  the  ideal  is  beautiful;  but 
what  can  make  it  imperative?" 

Every  teacher  or  preacher  has  asked 
this  question.  There  are  a  few  teach- 
ers who  say  that  only  by  return  to 
corporal  punishment  can  we  again 
create  in  our  children  reverence  for 
authority.      There   are   preachers   who 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    127 

hold  that  only  by  return  to  the  lurid 
preaching  of  a  century  ago  can  we 
make  men  tremble  at  sin  and  turn  to 
righteousness.  And  all  of  us  must  ask 
at  times :  "  How  can  we  in  a  world  of 
freedom   make  goodness  imperative?" 

But  in  the  life  of  an  ordinary  boys' 
school,  which  is  more  truly  authori- 
tative, the  rules  of  the  school  or  the 
ideals  of  the  school?  When  the  rules 
of  the  schoolroom  conflict  with  the 
boys'  ideals  of  honour  and  manhood, 
it  is  always  the  rules  that  have  to  give 
way.  No  demerits,  no  threats  of 
flogging  or  expulsion,  can  prevail 
against  the  authority  of  the  boyish 
ideal  of  what  is  right.  In  all  athletic 
sports  we  vainly  surround  our  students 
with  rules  of  "  eligibility ";  it  is  the 
student  ideal  of  what  is  fair  or  just 
that  gives  moral  quality  to  all  student 
games.  In  the  well-known  "  Boy 
Scout  "  movement,  it  is  the  "  honour  of 
a  scout,"  not  the  order  of  a  military 
captain,  that  is  effective. 

In  commercial  life,  which  is  more 
influential,    the    laws    on    the    statute- 


128    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

book  or  the  current  notions  of  business 
integrity?  Slowly  but  inevitably  the 
statute-book  changes,  yielding  to  the 
convictions  current  among  the  people. 
The  ideals  of  the  church  are  vastly 
more  potent  than  the  laws  passed  in 
any   ecclesiastical   assembly. 

The  truth  is  that  our  ideals,  which 
seem  so  fragile,  so  impalpable,  so 
helpless,  are  the  most  powerful  agents 
known  to  history.  The  ideal  of  "  cer- 
tain inalienable  rights "  belonging  to 
every  human  being  has  proved  mightier 
than  all  armies  and  navies.  The  ideal 
of  tender  affection  represented  in 
Mary  and  the  child  Jesus,  pictured 
during  the  Middle  Ages  in  thousands 
of  churches  and  palaces  and  homes, 
was  far  more  potent  in  subduing  the 
fierce  barbarians  of  Northern  Europe 
than  was  Charlemagne  or  Alcuin  or 
King  Alfred.  The  ideal  of  mediaeval 
knighthood  moulded  the  literature  and 
civilization  of  centuries.  The  ideals 
cherished  by  our  young  people  to-day 
— ideals  of  truth  and  honour  and  chas- 
tity  and   courtesy  and  manliness   and 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    129 

womanliness — are  more  imperative  to 
them  than  all  the  manuals  of  etiquette, 
the  regulations  of  the  police,  the  laws 
of  the  church,  and  even  the  command- 
ments of  the  Bible. 

Each  of  these  ideals  is  grounded  in 
a  fundamental  instinct  of  human  na- 
ture, and  the  instincts  are  the  driv- 
ing powers  of  life.  The  instincts, 
which  are  earlier  in  development  than 
our  reason,  can  be  directed  but  never 
eradicated.  They  stand  as  unconscious 
powers  behind  the  growing  life,  and 
project  themselves  forward  into  the 
conscious  ideals  that  summon  us  to 
follow.  Thus  the  instinct  of  imitation, 
deeply  based  in  every  one  of  us,  leads 
to  hero-worship,  i.e.  the  conscious 
choice  of  some  model.  The  blind  in- 
stinct of  curiosity,  natural  to  all  of 
us,  may  project  itself  forward  into  the 
spirit  of  scientific  research  to  which  a 
man  consciously  and  deliberately  de- 
votes his  life.  The  instinct  of  sex, 
blind  and  unreasoning,  projects  itself 
into  the  spirit  of  chivalry  with  all  its 
tender    devotion    to    idealized    woman- 


130    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

hood.  The  instinct  to  co-operate  with 
others,  which  we  see  even  in  brutes 
and  insects,  becomes  in  developed 
manhood  a  conscious  and  deliberate 
altruism.  Thus  the  instincts,  so  pow- 
erful that  they  seem  to  threaten  the 
very  existence  of  character,  are  the 
basis  of  those  still  more  powerful  ideals 
which  create  and  support  character. 
Instinct,  operating  as  blind  irresistible 
force,  compels  the  bird  to  build  its  nest 
and  the  bee  to  construct  its  hexagonal 
cell.  The  human  instincts,  just  as 
powerful,  are  transformed  into  pur- 
poses of  tremendous  potency,  into 
ideals  that  command  us  in  a  voice  we 
dare  not  disobey.  Humanity  is  abso- 
lutely governed  by  its  ideals  of  good- 
ness and  truth.  To  shape  those  ideals 
is  to  do  more  than  to  summon  armies 
or  fashion  codes  of  law. 

Here,  then,  is  our  answer  to  the 
question:  What  is  a  good  man?  A 
good  man  is  one  whose  fundamental 
purposes  and  ideals  are  good.  If  it  be 
further  asked:  What  ideals  and  pur- 
poses may  be   called  good?     We   an- 


THE  BASIS  AND  TEST  OF  CHARACTER    I31 

swer:  Nineteen  centuries  of  human 
experience  have  demonstrated  the 
supreme  value  of  the  ideals  held  by 
Jesus.  If  it  be  further  suggested  that 
ideals  and  purposes  are  vague  and 
feeble,  while  commandments  are  defi- 
nite and  imperative,  we  answer  that 
even  commandments  graven  on  stone 
in  the  thick  darkness  could  not  secure 
Israel's  obedience.  The  "  laws  of  the 
twelve  tables  "  have  long  been  obsolete. 
But  the  purpose  of  Christ  is  visibly 
and  inevitably  drawing  all  men  to 
itself. 

Lieutenant  Peary  made  many  jour- 
neys in  search  of  the  North  Pole,  not 
because  of  orders  from  the  govern- 
ment, not  because  of  any  outer  impera- 
tive. His  own  simple  explanation  is 
the  best:  "Something  keeps  calling, 
calling,  calling,  night  and  day,  until 
you  can  stand  it  no  more,  and  you  re- 
turn,— spell-drawn  by  the  magic  of  the 
North."  The  ideal  of  Jesus,  still  call- 
ing across  all  the  distances  and  bar- 
riers, is  the  mightiest  imperative  in  the 
modern  world. 


LECTURE  IV 

THE    PRINCIPLE 
OF   FELLOWSHIP 


You  cannot  express  one  God  in  a  split  church. 

Robert  E.  Speer 

Let  us  never  cease  to  be  pained  and  penitent 
about  this  sin  of  separation.  Let  us  face 
the  facts,  let  us  protest  against  them,  let 
us  repudiate  them.  ...  I  pray  you,  set  your  face 
like  a  flint  against  all  such  captious,  specious 
arguments  for  a  divided  Christendom.  '  Speak, 
exhort,  rebuke  with  all  authority '  those  who 
still  stand  out  against  this  clear  and  urgent 
duty  of  Christian  brotherhood. 

Henry  M.  Sanders 


LECTURE  IV 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOW- 
SHIP 

ONE  of  the  most  suggestive  and 
perplexing  facts  in  the  pres- 
ent development  of  Christian- 
ity is  this:  the  old  historic  denom- 
inations into  which  the  church  has 
long  been  divided  are  still  large  and 
steadily  growing,  but  the  finest  reli- 
gious life  of  our  generation  frequently 
flows  around  them  and  over  them, 
rather  than  through  them.  A  great 
body  of  Christian  impulse  and  devo- 
tion flows  through  the  centuries  like 
a  mighty  river  fed  from  unseen 
sources.  But  as  the  Mississippi  in  the 
spring  cuts  away  its  own  banks,  and 
carves  out  unexpected  channels,  so  the 
^Christian  life  of  our  time  has  a  sur- 
prising way  of  ignoring  the  old  fa- 
miliar dykes  we  have  built  to  restrain 
135 


136    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

it,  and  often  prefers  to  create  for  it- 
self methods  and  instruments  of  which 
the  world  has  never  heard  before. 

A  glance  at  the  United  States  census 
will  show  any  man  that  in  numbers 
and  in  property  the  historic  divisions 
of  American  Christianity  are  still  im- 
portant and  impressive.  Two  or  three 
of  them,  which  have  never  emphasized 
the  missionary  impulse,  are  dwindling, 
content  to  become  select  circles  of  in- 
tellectual culture  and  social  courtesy. 
But  on  the  whole  the  historic  denomi- 
nations are  still  massive,  steadily  in- 
creasing their  roll  of  membership, 
their  compactness  of  organization,  and 
their  material  equipment.  No  one  of 
them  shows  any  sign  of  ability — 
though  it  may  possess  the  wish — to 
absorb  all  the  rest.  No  one  of  the 
larger  Christian  bodies  intends  to  re- 
tire from  the  King's  business.  All 
the  historic  churches  which  existed  in 
America  in  1776  are  here  to-day,  and 
most  of  them  vastly  larger  and  more 
effective. 

But  at  the  same  time  we  are  con- 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       137 

fronted  with  the  curious  and  ominous 
fact  that  the  purest  Christian  aspira- 
tion, the  deepest  Christian  devotion  of 
our  day  frequently  makes  no  use  of 
these  historic  channels,  disregards  all 
denominational  organizations,  and  cre- 
ates its  own  modes  of  expression  and 
achievement. 

The  contrast  between  the  old  chan- 
nels and  the  new  was  brought  home  to 
me  most  forcibly  one  summer  after- 
noon when  I  was  making  a  journey 
through  the  cathedral  towns  of  south- 
ern England.  We  had  been  attending 
the  venerable  service  of  "  evening 
prayer  "  in  the  cathedral  of  Ely,  where 
noble  architecture,  "  windows  richly 
dight,"  a  clear-voiced  choir  and  stately 
procession  combined  to  hush  the  soul 
in  awe  and  worship.  To  us  as  stran- 
gers the  entire  service  was  uplifting  and 
memorable.  Yet  not  more  than  twenty 
persons  were  present,  scattered  through 
the  majestic  nave.  As  we  came  out 
through  the  great  portal  into  the  even- 
ing twilight,  we  heard  the  beating 
of    a    big    drum    and    strident    voices 


138    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

struggling  to  keep  the  pitch  of  a  mar- 
tial tune.  There  before  us  on  the  vil- 
lage green  stood  a  detachment  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  in  unkempt  and  glar- 
ing garb,  breaking  all  the  laws  of  har- 
mony and  rhetoric,  but  with  a  larger 
congregation  and  far  greater  moral 
passion  than  we  had  found  within  the 
noble  cathedral  behind  us.  That  sight 
set  us  questioning.  Why  must  those 
simple  men  on  the  village  green  ignore 
the  venerable  church  in  order  to  fulfil 
their  mission?  Why  must  they  reject 
ordination  by  a  bishop,  and  then  seek 
absolute  submission  to  a  "general"? 
Why  could  not  the  Christian  church 
find  a  place  for  the  superb  organizing 
genius  of  William  Booth  and  his  gifted 
family?  Why  in  England  and  Russia 
and  America  are  millions  of  Christian 
believers  habitually  going  outside  the 
church  in  order  to  perform  the  Chris- 
tian task? 

The  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation in  this  country  is  one  of  the 
most  wisely  conducted  and  effective 
organizations  the  world  has  ever  seen. 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       139 

Its  growing  strength  is  most  encour- 
aging to  all  those  who  would  see 
Christianity  prevail  in  our  great  cities. 
It  has  steadily  put  first  things  first. 
It  has  emphasized,  not  differences  but 
identities,  not  doctrine  but  life,  not 
prestige  but  service.  It  is  constantly 
on  the  watch  for  promising  young 
men  of  our  schools  and  colleges  and 
is  steadily  lifting  the  type  of  its  effort. 
Yet  no  leader  in  the  Christian  church 
can  look  upon  the  achievements  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
without  asking:  "Why?"  Why  must 
all  this  splendid  passion  for  saving  and 
moulding  human  lives  be  diverted  from 
church  channels  and  made  to  flow 
through  a  novel  society  created  for 
the  purpose?  Was  it  because  of  dis- 
loyalty to  the  church?  The  whole  his- 
tory of  the  Association  disproves  that. 
Was  it  because  the  churches  had  too 
narrow  a  conception  of  their  mission, 
too  much  fear  of  one  another  to  co- 
operate, too  close  adherence  to  methods 
outgrown,  too  little  space  for  original 
and  inventive  minds  to  work  in? 


140    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

The  great  growth  of  the  organized 
charities  in  our  modern  cities  chal- 
lenges in  similar  fashion  the  Christian 
church.  In  most  cities  the  charitable 
effort  of  the  church  has  dwindled  to  a 
shadow — a  mere  monthly  collection  for 
the  indigent  among  its  own  members. 
The  entire  relief  of  the  blind,  the  deaf, 
the  sick,  the  crippled,  the  feeble-minded 
in  the  modern  city  is  administered 
without  troubling  the  church  in  the 
least.  Formerly  the  fact  that  the  lep- 
ers were  cleansed  and  the  deaf  made 
to  hear  and  the  blind  to  see  was  given 
as  the  clearest  evidence  that  the  King- 
dom was  at  hand.  Now  such  things 
are  simply  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  a  district  nursing  association  or  an 
anti-tuberculosis  society  or  an  efficient 
municipal  government,  and  organized 
Christianity  has  been  stripped  of  the 
task  and  the  credentials  which  were 
once  its  pride  and  joy.  Does  this  mean 
progress,  or  not?  If  the  city  and  the 
state  will  do  these  things,  why  should 
the  church  be  longer  burdened?  But 
if  the  church  loses  its  burden,  will  it 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       141 

also  lose  its  mission?  After  we  have 
organized  a  score  more  of  these  great 
societies  for  the  helping  of  humanity, 
or  have  vastly  enlarged  the  function  of 
the  state,  will  the  church  become  super- 
fluous? Is  the  church  being  emanci- 
pated from  a  needless  burden,  or  is  it 
being  discharged  from  service? 

The  great  Christian  Endeavor  move- 
ment and  the  remarkable  Chautauqua 
movement  are  both  of  them  provoca- 
tive and  challenging.  Are  their  objects 
so  foreign  to  the  life  of  the  church  that 
the  church  must  decline  any  official 
responsibility? 

The  summer  assemblies  annually 
held  at  Northfield  are  as  directly  reli- 
gious in  aim  and  scope  as  any  in 
America.  They  seek  nothing  so  much 
as  the  deepening  of  the  spiritual  life. 
Why  then  was  it  necessary  to  leave  all 
church  buildings,  all  denominational 
leadership,  and  organize  the  meetings 
around  a  single  unique  personality? 

Recently  our  country  has  been  swept 
by  an  extraordinary  movement  called 
"  Men  and  Religion. "     The  very  name 


142    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

omits  all  mention  of  the  church  or 
even  of  the  Christian  faith.  It  is  the 
deliberate  attempt  to  go  outside  of  all 
historic  names,  methods,  organizations, 
and  leaders,  and  summon  the  men  of 
our  generation  with  a  voice  more  virile, 
more  vital,  more  convincing,  than  that 
which  now  comes  through  the  regular 
services  of  any  church. 

Constantly  the  question  is  asked 
"why  people  do  not  go  to  church?  " 
A  multitude  of  reasons  are  assigned — 
all  showing  that  we  have  not  reached 
the  real  reason.  The  real  reason  for  di- 
minished attendance  in  many  churches 
that  were  once  thronged  is  that  the 
people  are  persuaded  that  the  vital 
issues  of  modern  life  are  not  now 
being  discussed  in  our  churches,  but 
rather  in  our  hospitals,  our  charitable 
societies,  our  municipal  leagues,  our 
colleges,  our  periodicals,  our  educa- 
tional conventions.  Religious  litera- 
ture is  having  to-day  an  enormous  cir- 
culation. Even  the  demand  for  the 
old-fashioned  "  tracts "  is  still  con- 
stant.    Devotional  works,   manuals  of 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       143 

prayer  and  meditation,  volumes  of 
sermons  and  religious  addresses,  are 
poured  from  the  press  each  winter, 
and  are  eagerly  devoured  by  a  people 
that  is  obviously  hungry  for  religious 
solace  and  stimulus.  The  best  of 
our  popular  magazines  are  now  de- 
voting much  space  to  religion,  its 
achievements  at  home,  its  missionary 
effort  abroad.  Many  popular  novels 
turn  on  religious  issues,  and  the  drama 
often  attempts  to  picture  on  the  stage 
what  would  happen  if  one  should  con- 
sistently live  out  primitive  Christianity 
amid  the  conditions  of  modern  life. 
There  is  more  religious  aspiration 
abroad  in  our  land  to-day  than  ever 
before,  more  hearty  response  to  the 
setting  forth  of  Christian  standards  of 
action,  more  sincere  desire  to  translate 
the  life  of  Christ  into  the  life  of  the 
struggling  world. 

Why,  then,  do  churchmen  find  it  so 
hard  to  get  together  in  effective  plans 
of  effort?  Why  are  the  most  fertile 
minds  obliged  to  go  outside  the  church 
and  create  new  instruments  before  they 


144    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

can  attempt  the  new  tasks?  Why  is 
the  church  so  often  left  on  a  sidetrack, 
while  other  swifter  trains  go  thunder- 
ing past  it  to  their  goal?  Why  are  the 
best  educated  members  of  our  churches 
contenting  themselves  with  pro  forma 
attendance  at  "  divine  service "  once 
a  week,  while  their  ethical  enthusiasm, 
their  finest  altruistic  passion,  is  poured 
through  other  channels?  Is  the  church 
big  enough  for  its  task? 

The  real  difficulty  lies  deep  and  will 
not  be  removed  by  small  measures. 
The  difficulty  is  not  that  the  Christian 
church  is  divided,  but  that  it  is  divided 
on  the  wrong  principle,  so  divided  that 
the  people  who  belong  together  cannot 
find  one  another  out.  The  obstacle 
to  our  progress  is  not  that  denomina- 
tions exist,  for  as  long  as  there  are 
various  historic  movements,  various 
temperaments  and  points  of  view,  there 
must  be  varieties  in  religion.  If  all 
men  could  be  combined  in  one  great 
homogeneous  body,  all  thinking  the 
same  thoughts  and  worshipping  in  the 
same  way,  a  solid  block  of  orthodoxy 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       145 

and  conformity,  the  world  would  gain 
little  and  lose  much.  The  trouble  is 
not  that  we  have  divisions,  but  that 
those  we  have  are  often  irrational  and 
unchristian.  Every  one  of  us  knows 
what  it  is  to  feel  nearer,  in  sympathy 
and  ideal,  to  some  men  outside  our 
own  denomination  than  to  most  men 
within  it.  Every  one  of  us  knows  that 
the  foreign  missionary  movement  in 
Europe  and  America  began  not  by 
persuading  any  church  to  begin, — that 
proved  impossible — but  by  selecting 
like-minded  souls  from  all  the  churches, 
and  banding  them  together  in  little 
missionary  societies.  The  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  has  pro- 
gressed, not  by  securing  the  official 
endorsement  of  any  denomination — 
that  would  even  to-day  be  difficult — 
but  by  selecting  from  many  churches 
those  fired  with  similar  zeal  for  up- 
lifting young  manhood. 

These  various  organizations,  exter- 
nal to  the  church,  may  be  unwisely 
planned  or  administered;  they  may 
work     at     cross-purposes;     they     may 


146    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

prove  transient  in  their  results.  But 
they  are  immensely  effective  in  pro- 
viding channels  for  ethical  passion  that 
can  find  no  outlet  through  traditional 
methods.  They  enable  like-minded 
men  fired  with  a  common  purpose  to 
get  together,  regardless  of  the  barriers, 
social  or  ecclesiastical,  which  held  their 
fathers  asunder.  If  half  a  dozen  men, 
members  of  six  different  churches  in 
an  American  town,  wish  to  do  some- 
thing concrete  to  help  the  boys  who 
stand  nightly  on  the  street  corners, 
they  may  find  it  quite  impossible  to 
work  through  a  divided  Christian 
church.  Formidable  questions  at  once 
arise.  One  church  may  be  profoundly 
interested  in  philanthropic  work,  while 
others  may  deem  it  wholly  secular. 
If  any  minister  is  to  direct  the  work, 
of  what  denomination  shall  he  be?  If 
any  church  building  is  to  be  used, 
which  church  shall  secure  this  ad- 
vantage? If  any  meetings  of  the  boys 
are  to  be  held  on  Sunday,  what  form 
of  service  shall  be  used?  If  the  boys, 
after  being  civilized  and  instructed,  are 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       147 

to  become  church  members,  which 
church  shall  they  join?  How  shall  the 
expense  of  the  entire  movement  be 
apportioned  among  the  churches,  and 
how  shall  each  church  be  enabled  to 
reap  its  share  of  the  results  achieved? 
In  hundreds  of  places  these  questions 
have  brought  to  a  standstill  the  finest 
aspirations  of  Christian  men. 

But  if  those  six  men  go  outside  the 
churches  and  form  an  entirely  new 
organization,  focussed  on  the  immedi- 
ate and  specific  task,  at  once  a  score  of 
hereditary  burdens  slip  away  and  van- 
ish. All  who  believe  in  the  object  of 
the  organization  can  be  allowed  to 
join  it,  regardless  of  the  mode  of  initia- 
tion. All  who  want  to  help  may  do  so 
without  examination  as  to  their  social 
or  political  or  theological  standing. 
Whether  the  boys  reached  through  the 
new  endeavour  shall  join  any  other  as- 
sociation later  need  not  be  discussed, 
since  the  boy  is  regarded  as  an  end  in 
himself  and  not  a  means  for  upbuilding 
anything.  Through  the  new  organiza- 
tion men  who  are  filled  with  the  same 


148    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

desire  are  enabled  to  find  each  other 
out,  to  ignore  a  thousand  divisive 
questions  and  get  together  for  effi- 
cient action.  The  novel  society,  what- 
ever we  call  it — "  Boys'  Club,"  "  Boy 
Scouts/'  "  Junior  Christian  Endeav- 
our," or  "  Social  Settlement," — may  be 
short-lived  and  inadequate  to  its  task. 
But  it  has  this  immense  advan- 
tage— it  enables  men  who  share  the 
same  purpose  to  join  in  the  same  great 
effort.  Never  will  the  Christian  church 
achieve  its  full  joy  and  power  of  serv- 
ice until  it  everywhere  proclaims  that 
all  who  share  the  Christian  purpose 
are  thereby  made  members  of  the 
Christian   fellowship.* 

Various   other   principles   have   long 

*  Some  of  our  leading  American  churches,  unable 
to  open  their  doors  as  widely  as  Christ  has  opened 
his  Kingdom,  have  recently  adopted  the  device  of 
"  associate  membership."  In  effect  they  say  to  mil- 
lions of  Christian  disciples:  "We  recognize  you  as  de- 
voted followers  of  our  common  Lord.  But  since  you 
are  ceremonially  or  doctrinally  ineligible  to  our  local 
fellowship  we  place  you  in  our  annex  and  print  your 
names  in  our  secondary  list."  To  such  pathetic  straits 
is  the  Christian  spirit  reduced  by  its  struggle  with 
tradition. 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       149 

been  tried  as  the  basis  of  fellowship. 
For  example,  there  is  the  principle  of 
submission  to  authority.  That  idea, 
which  has  played  so  large  a  part  in 
history,  is  that  all  those  who  agree  to 
submit  in  action  and  in  thought  to  the 
divinely  appointed  custodians  of  the 
faith  are  thereby  admitted  to  the  com- 
pany of  the  faithful.  This  theory  is 
worked  out  with  perfect  consistency  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  church.  Rich  and 
poor,  learned  and  ignorant,  Aryan  and 
Semite  can  all  sit  side  by  side  in  her 
worship  and  her  fellowship — provided 
they  make  full  submission,  even  in 
their  most  secret  thoughts,  to  the  in- 
fallible authority  of  the  Roman  pontiff. 
The  advantages  of  a  fellowship  based 
on  authority  are  of  course  clear  to  us 
all.  The  benefits  of  a  centralized  or- 
ganization that  can  survey  the  whole 
field  and  act  swiftly  are  obvious  when 
we  face  the  problems  of  a  metropolis. 
Congregational  independency  breaks 
down  when  compelled  to  grapple  with 
highly  organized  evil  in  a  large  city. 
When  we  are  scandalized  by  the  eccen- 


ISO    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

tricity  of  individuals,  when  some  ill- 
poised  clergyman  defies  the  united 
common  sense  of  all  his  colleagues, 
then  we  long  for  an  authoritative  hand 
that  can  reach  out,  and  silence  or 
banish  the  trouble  in  Israel. 

But  in  our  wiser  moments  we  realize 
that  they  that  take  the  sword  perish 
with  the  sword.  There  is  nothing  the 
church  more  dreads  to-day  than  a  trial 
for  heresy.  Ecclesiastical  authority 
finds  it  quite  impossible  to-day  to  pro- 
duce uniformity.  The  church  of  Eng- 
land has  always  found  it  necessary  to 
admit  the  distinctions  of  view-point 
that  we  describe  as  "  high  "  and  "  low  " 
and  "  broad."  The  Roman  Catholic 
church  is  to-day  rent  by  the  great- 
est heresy  since  Luther's  revolt, — the 
"  modernism "  which  is  as  irresistible 
as  the  melting  of  the  snow  in  April 
sunlight.  Authority  as  a  principle  of 
fellowship  is  efficient  indeed,  but  it  is 
fatal  to  freedom  of  thought,  honesty 
of  speech,  and  spirituality  of  life. 
"  One  is  your  Master  and  all  ye  are 
brethren. "     If  any  man  is  exalted  by 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       15 1 

the  church  to  a  place  of  temporary 
power,  he  is  the  servant  of  the  church 
and  not  its  ruler.  His  authority  is 
functional,  not  structural  or  perpetual. 
In  a  democratic  age  ecclesiastical 
authority  must  more  and  more  give 
way  to  ecclesiastical  leadership.  The 
time  is  soon  coming  when  in  religion 
we  shall  have  guides  but  not  governors, 
trusted  leaders  but  not  autocratic  com- 
manders, and  when  intermediaries 
between  the  soul  and  God  shall  be 
no  longer  tolerated  by  God-fearing 
men. 

But  another  principle  of  fellowship 
has  had  wide  acceptance  among  Prot- 
estants,— the  principle  of  intellectual 
conformity.  It  has  been  held  by  many 
churches,  sometimes  explicitly  and 
sometimes  quite  unconsciously,  that 
identity  of  religious  opinions  is  the 
basis  of  Christian  fellowship.  The 
word  "  believe,"  of  which  the  New 
Testament  makes  so  much,  means 
"  have  confidence,"  and  refers  never  to 
the  assent  of  the  intellect  alone,  but  to 
the   consent  of  the  entire  personality. 


152    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

It  never  means  acceptance  of  a  prop- 
osition, but  always  devotion  to  a  per- 
son or  a  cause.  But  it  has  been  under- 
stood to  mean  "  accept  opinions,"  and 
oneness  in  theology  has  been  held  to  be 
the  necessary  condition  of  oneness  in 
life.  It  has  indeed  been  explained  that 
this  identity  of  opinion  must  be  re- 
quired only  in  "  essentials,"  but  still 
the  fact  remains  that  the  basis  of  Prot- 
estant fellowship  has  usually  been 
found  in  the  agreement  of  ideas.  The 
church  has  used  the  word  "  heresy," — 
which  in  the  New  Testament  always 
means  "  faction," — as  if  it  meant  mere 
intellectual  divergence,  and  therefore 
it  has  been  tempted  to  set  orthodoxy, 
right  thinking,  above  orthopraxis,  right 
doing. 

But  under  such  circumstances  intel- 
lectual agreement  has  often  been  pur- 
chased at  a  heavy  price.  Sometimes  it 
has  been  maintained  only  by  stifling 
scholarship.  When  a  scholar  in  a 
church  college  or  theological  seminary 
knows  that  all  his  opinions  have  been 
formulated   for   him   before   he   begins 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP        153 

to  teach,  he  is  in  a  pitiful  position. 
He  can  survey  the  field  of  unfettered 
thought,  but  he  is  shut  from  it — like  a 
gold-fish  circling  in  a  glass  globe,  look- 
ing through  the  walls  he  cannot  pass. 
Students  cannot  really  respect  any 
teacher  who  they  know  would  be 
penalized  for  any  change  of  mind. 
They  cannot  be  summoned  to  earnest 
thinking  by  a  man  who  must  not  think 
himself.  The  churches  of  such  a  de- 
nomination are  churches  that  in- 
sensibly come  to  fear  openness  of  mind 
and  plainness  of  speech  and  come  to 
exalt  the  "  safe  and  sane "  type  of 
ministry  as  the  highest.  They  uncon- 
sciously emphasize  the  thing  they  fear, 
and  an  intellectual  disagreement  as- 
sumes the  proportions  of  a  mortal  sin. 
But  the  chief  damage  resulting  from 
insistence  on  identity  of  opinions  is  the 
driving  out  from  the  church,  by  swift 
exclusion  or  by  slow  pressure,  of  its 
most  original  and  creative  minds.  The 
inert  and  flabby  mind  is  seldom  hereti- 
cal— it  is  too  timid  to  strike  out  and 
blaze    a    new    trail.      The    mind    con- 


154    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

tented  and  wooden  finds  it  easiest  to 
follow  the  average  opinion,  and  takes 
its  colour  from  the  mood  of  the  crowd. 
But  it  is  precisely  the  energetic  and 
dynamic  spirit  that  is  most  likely,  es- 
pecially in  its  early  years,  to  jump 
the  track  of  conventional  opinion,  and 
make  its  independent  way  across  the 
fields.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  heretics 
are  always  constructive  and  creative 
men.  On  the  contrary  they  may  be 
merely  eccentric,  volatile,  half-baked. 
Heterodoxy  does  not  mean  ability,  but 
ability  is  quite  sure  at  some  point  on 
the  vast  intellectual  horizon  to  mean 
heterodoxy.  It  is  inconceivable  that 
any  strong  original  mind,  facing  the 
deepest  problems  of  life  and  their  his- 
toric solutions,  should  be  content  to 
state  its  own  solution  wholly  in  the 
phrases  of  another  century  or  another 
race.  Any  denomination  that  insists 
on  such  conformity,  whether  through 
the  decrees  of  councils  or  through 
trial  by  religious — or  irreligious — 
newspapers,  will  steadily  "  lose  at  the 
top/'    will   drive   from    it   the   men   of 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       155 

intellectual  and  moral  courage  and  re- 
tain the  docile  and  stagnant  minds. 

Again  and  again  we  hear  men  say: 
"  I  cannot  accept  the  whole  creed  of 
my  brethren;  I  diverge  here  and  here; 
ought  I  to  leave  my  church?''  The 
answer  derived  from  all  Christian  his- 
tory is :  "  Stay  in  your  church  till  the 
last  possible  moment!  Unless  you  are 
actually  compelled  in  conscience  to 
oppose  and  denounce  your  church, 
stay  with  and  help  it."  The  men  who 
are  steadily  searching  for  "  more  light 
to  break  out  of  God's  word  "  are  the 
very  men  the  church  most  needs.  The 
unsatisfied  and  eager  minds  are  those 
we  can  least  spare.  If  they,  and  all 
men  like  them,  leave  the  church,  what 
can  save  it  from  decay?  Let  them 
stay  to  the  last  moment  and  help  the 
church  to  find  and  to  proclaim  the 
farther  ranges  of  truth. 

It  was  the  Huguenots,  driven  out  of 
France  for  daring  to  think,  who  fer- 
tilized religiously  many  other  parts  of 
Europe.  It  was  the  heretical  Pilgrims 
of   England   who   sowed   the    seeds   of 


156    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

religious  freedom  in  America.  The 
humiliation  of  modern  Spain  is  chiefly 
due  to  the  policy  pursued  for  centuries, 
of  killing  or  driving  out  original  and 
conceiving  men  from  the  counsels  of 
the  nation.  Scotland  by  its  ironclad 
orthodoxy  compelled  Carlyle  to  proph- 
esy outside  its  pale,  as  the  Anglican 
church  earlier  had  compelled  John 
Wesley  to  leave  its  temples  for  the 
green  fields  of  England. 

On  the  foreign  field  the  missionary 
work  of  the  church  is  hindered  and 
sometimes  completely  blocked  by  the 
attempt  to  perpetuate  occidental  diver- 
gences in  oriental  life.  What  if  an 
American  denomination  did  split  into 
two  bodies  a  century  ago  as  the  result 
of  a  theological  controversy?  Must 
that  controversy  be  carried  over  sea, 
explained  to  minds  that  would  never 
have  thought  of  it,  and  embalmed  in 
institutions  forever?  Must  the  differ- 
ence between  "  regular  "  and  "  free  " 
Baptists,  between  Episcopalian  and 
"  reformed  "  Episcopalian,  be  ex- 
pounded and  made  eternal  in  India  and 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       157 

China?  The  oriental  races  have 
troubles  of  their  own.  They  have  suf- 
fered enough  from  occidental  diseases; 
must  they  also  be  inoculated  with 
occidental  sectarianism,  ere  they  can 
enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven?  May 
they  not  work  out  an  oriental  appre- 
hension of  Christianity  better  and 
truer  than  ours?  May  not  the  lands 
that  produced  the  Bible  be  competent 
to  understand  it? 

Amid  such  divergences  of  opinion 
combined  with  insistence  on  opinions 
as  the  basis  of  fellowship,  many  of  our 
foremost  thinkers  and  ethical  leaders 
are  to-day  standing  aloof  from  the 
church.  Their  attitude  is  represented 
by  the  frank  utterance  of  one  of  the 
leading  American  teachers  of  philos- 
ophy, a  man  possessed  of  a  deeply 
religious  spirit.  He  claims  that  a  gen- 
uine philosopher  may  well  remain  out- 
side all  churches,  just  as  a  justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  would  remain  out- 
side all  the  movements  of  partisan 
politics. 

While  we  receive  such  an  utterance 


158    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

with  respect,  we  cannot  concede  its 
wisdom  or  insight.  It  is  a  reaction 
into  sheer  individualism  in  religion. 
It  is  blind  to  the  necessity  of  union 
among  men  of  faith,  as  among  men  in 
industry  or  art  or  politics.  It  puts  the 
spectator  at  life's  great  game  above 
the  brave  men  who  plunge  in  and  try 
to  play  it.  It  is  the  counsel  not  of 
perfection  but  of  isolation  and  despair. 
In  union  is  not  only  strength,  but 
insight,  progress,  joy.  Isolation  means 
partial  vision  and  the  blurring  of  the 
judgment.  A  solitary  individual  must 
lose  his  fervour,  as  a  single  coal  on 
the  hearthstone  loses  its  fire.  But  he 
loses  more  than  fervour;  he  loses  the 
understanding  which  comes  from 
sympathy.  He  knows  his  own  intel- 
lectual caste,  but  is  cut  of!  from  the 
diversified  communion  of  saints.  If 
Christ  had  never  contemplated  a 
church,  it  would  have  come  into  being 
by  sheer  necessity.  We  cannot  reject 
all  visible  Christian  fellowship  merely 
because  dissatisfied  with  the  bases  of 
fellowship  around  us. 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       159 

If  then  submission  to  authority  can 
no  longer  serve  as  the  principle  of  fel- 
lowship, if  identity  of  opinion  is  mani- 
festly impossible,  if  the  attitude  of 
isolation  is  self-defeating,  what  can 
we  do? 

We  can  return  to  the  attitude  of 
our  Lord  when  he  said:  "  Whosoever 
shall  do  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is 
in  heaven,  the  same  is  my  brother  and 
sister  and  mother."  That  is  to  say, 
whoever  lives  for  what  God  lives  for, 
whoever  cherishes  the  purposes  of  God 
made  known  to  humanity  through 
Christ, — whatever  his  organization  or 
formula  may  be, — is  in  the  Christian 
fellowship,  in  intimate  and  eternal  re- 
lation to  Christ  and  all  who  belong  to 
him. 

In  our  hymn-books  we  already  have 
this  principle  of  fellowship  frankly 
adopted.  No  denomination  would 
dream  of  excluding  from  its  hymnal 
any  lyrical  utterance  of  devotion  be- 
cause of  the  ecclesiastical  connection  or 
the  doctrinal  beliefs  of  the  singer. 
LWhen    the    Anglican    priest    conducts 


160    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

worship,  he  uses  the  hymns  of  Charles 
Wesley  just  as  freely  as  the  Methodist 
preacher  uses  those  of  Bishop  Heber 
or  Bishop  Ken.  The  Baptist  sings  the 
hymns  "  Nearer  my  God  to  Thee,"  and 
"  In  the  Cross  of  Christ  I  Glory,"  both 
of  them  written  by  English  Unitarians, 
as  gladly  as  the  Unitarian  sings  the 
hymn  of  the  Baptist  teacher,  "  He 
Leadeth  me."  Quaker  and  Presbyte- 
rian are  grateful  for  "  Lead,  Kindly 
Light  "  and  care  nothing  for  the  fact 
that  the  poem  was  one  of  the  first 
utterances  of  Newman  after  breaking 
with  the  Protestant  Church.  The  wid- 
est divergences  of  "  belief "  are  for- 
gotten when  the  church  begins  to  sing. 
Just  as  in  the  New  Testament  we  have 
three  different  aspects  of  the  truth — 
the  Pauline,  the  Petrine,  and  the 
Johannine — and  Peter  affirming  that 
in  the  writings  of  "  our  beloved  brother 
Paul "  are  "  some  things  hard  to  be 
understood,"  so  in  our  Christian  hym- 
nology  we  have  unity  underlying  all 
varieties  of  apprehension.  And  it  is 
the  variety  that  makes  the  unity  rich 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       161 

and  significant.  A  hymnal  confined  to 
the  utterance  of  one  denomination 
would  be  a  poor  and  provincial  collec- 
tion. Sectarianism  in  song  has,  hap- 
pily, never  been  achieved. 

Is  there  no  way  in  which  those  who 
can  sing  together  and  pray  together 
may  be  able  to  work  together?  Is 
there  no  method  by  which  unity  of 
devotion  to  Christ  may  become  unity 
of  action  for  Christ?  Is  there  no  pos- 
sibility that  all  those  who  have  sworn 
allegiance  to  the  purpose  of  Christ 
shall  find  out  one  another  and  achieve 
a   co-operating   fellowship? 

I  well  know  the  obstacles,  the  bar- 
riers ancient  and  strong.  If  we  pro- 
pose any  definite  measure  of  co-opera- 
tion, thousands  of  men  rise  to  protest 
against  condoning  error,  against  dis- 
loyalty to  the  past,  against  surrender 
of  truth  to  pleasing  sentiment.  "  How 
can  we  join  any  Federation  of 
Churches?"  some  excellent  men  say; 
"  Do  we  not  thereby  acknowledge  as 
full  churches  some  Christian  bodies  not 
organized     on     the     New     Testament 


1 62    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

model?  How  can  we  engage  in  union 
services?  Will  not  our  young  people 
be  drawn  away  from  the  church  of 
their  childhood?  How  can  we  ex- 
change pulpits?  Do  we  not  thereby 
logically  sanction  what  our  standards 
repudiate?  "  But  if  each  branch  of  the 
Christian  church  continues  to  main- 
tain these  barriers  of  logic  and  custom, 
one  thing  is  certain:  the  great  tide  of 
Christian  devotion  in  our  generation 
will  sweep  around  the  church,  flow 
through  other  channels,  and  leave  the 
church  logical,  dry,  and  deserted. 

But  all  the  great  branches  of  the 
church  are  to-day  growingly  impatient 
of  the  barriers  that  have  kept  asunder 
what  God  hath  joined  together.  They 
refuse  to  spend  their  main  strength 
henceforth  in  keeping  the  fences  in 
repair.  Reasons  indeed  can  be  given 
for  all  the  separations  of  the  past,  but 
greater  reasons  can  be  given  for  co- 
operation now.  We  are  coining  to- 
gether, not  because  one  church  has  out- 
argued  another,  not  because  we  have 
answered  all  the  objections  that  intol- 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       1 63 

erance  has  raised,  but  because  we  have 
found  such  arguments  unprofitable  and 
such  objections  unimportant.  The 
general  longing  for  visible  co-operation 
and  fellowship  does  not  spring  from 
growing  intellectual  agreement.  I 
hope  and  believe  it  does  not  spring 
from  growing  indifference  to  religion. 
It  springs  from  sheer  necessity.  Bigo- 
try has  not  been  convinced  of  its  error, 
but  it  is  being  starved  out.  The 
churches  that  will  not  recognize  their 
brethren  of  other  communions  are 
being  left  behind,  as  specimens  of  des- 
iccated and  barren  consistency.  They 
may  be  logically  correct,  but  they  cer- 
tainly are  jejune  and  impotent.  If 
the  church  is  to  recover  its  leadership 
in  the  modern  world,  and  to  speak 
again  with  commanding  voice  in  ethics, 
in  philanthropy,  in  education,  in  gov- 
ernment, it  must  recognize  this  new 
impulse  of  spiritual  brotherhood  as 
divinely  sent.  It  must,  without  sur- 
rendering any  truth,  open  its  doors  as 
widely  as  Christ  has  opened  the  doors 
of  his  discipleship,  and   seek   to   make 


164    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

the  church  of  God  co-extensive  with 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  Those  who  are 
joined  to  Christ  in  a  common  allegiance 
belong  in  a  common  fellowship,  and 
whatever  theory  denies  that  fact  must 
soon  give  way.  Those  who  cherish  the 
purpose  of  God  revealed  through 
Christ  are  as  our  brother  and  sister 
and  mother,  and  ought  to  be — soon 
shall  be — visibly  and  publicly  joined  in 
Christian  fellowship.  We  cannot  call 
Christ  Lord,  and  treat  any  one  of  his 
disciples  as  outside  the  family  circle. 

Many  men  have  imagined  that  this 
future  fellowship  would  abolish  the  his- 
toric fellowships  that  already  exist, 
and  that  some  mighty  organization  of 
the  Christian  host  would  entirely  super- 
sede the  existing  churches.  That  ex- 
pectation is  such  stuff  as  dreams  are 
made  of.  Not  only  do  our  present 
divisions  represent  historic  movements 
that  cannot  be  ignored,  but  they  rep- 
resent permanent  varieties  of  mental 
habit,  of  social  ideal,  and  of  moral  dis- 
position. It  is  not  necessary  or  even 
desirable  that  Canon  Liddon  and  Jerry 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       165 

McAuley  should  use  the  same  forms 
of  speech  when  they  pray.  It  would 
be  as  futile  to  impose  the  service  of  the 
Ely  Cathedral  on  a  rescue  mission,  as 
to  transfer  the  Salvation  Army  exhor- 
tation into  the  choir  of  the  cathedral. 
The  sermons  of  Horace  Bushnell  would 
have  been  as  useless  to  the  circuit- 
riders  of  early  Methodism,  as  the 
Anglican  prayer-book  would  be  to-day 
to  the  rough-riders  of  a  Nevada  ranch. 
The  existing  religious  denominations 
are  still  strong  and  growing,  be- 
cause they  tend  more  and  more 
to  represent  permanent  psychological 
types,  permanent  modes  of  men- 
tal attitude  and  behaviour.  If  we 
should  succeed  in  abolishing  them 
and  transferring  all  Christians  into  one 
huge  all-embracing  church,  could  that 
church  be  held  together  without 
tyranny?  It  is  difficult  enough  for  the 
papal  power,  armed  with  the  doctrine 
of  infallibility,  to  hold  its  clergy  and 
laity  in  leash.  Could  Protestantism 
succeed  as  well?  Could  it  without  sur- 
rendering its  right  of  private  judgment 


1 66    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

hold  all  Christians  under  one  liturgy, 
one  school  of  theology,  one  method  of 
organization?  The  question  answers 
itself. 

But  without  attempting  that  impos- 
sibility, we  can  do  that  for  which  the 
time  is  fully  ripe — we  can  insist  that  all 
those  of  every  name  and  faith  who  wish 
to  co-operate  in  the  King's  business 
shall  have  opportunity  and  invitation 
to  do  so.  If  our  various  denominations 
can  be  enabled  to  plan  together  the  en- 
tire Christian  enterprise,  the  question 
of  organic  unity  can  be  indefinitely 
postponed.  All  signs  point  to  a  grow- 
ing impatience  and  even  resentment 
in  the  presence  of  barriers  that  keep 
asunder  those  already  united  in  spirit- 
ual purpose.  A  conviction  of  ecclesias- 
tical sin  is  rapidly  spreading  through 
all  denominations.  The  Protestant 
Episcopal  Convention  of  the  United 
States  only  two  years  ago  adopted  a 
report  containing  these  memorable 
words:  "We  believe  that  all  Christian 
communions  are  in  accord  with  us  in 
our    desire    to    lay    aside    self-will    and 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       167 

to  put  on  the  mind  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord  .  .  .  We  would  place 
ourselves  by  the  side  of  our  fellow- 
Christians.  .  .  .  With  grief  for  our 
aloofness  in  the  past  and  for  other 
faults  of  pride  and  self-sufficiency 
which  make  for  schism,  with  loyalty 
to  the  truth  as  we  see  it  and  with 
respect  for  the  convictions  of  those 
who  differ  from  us,  we  respectfully 
submit  the  following  resolution": 
(calling  for  a  conference  of  all  Chris- 
tian communions  throughout  the 
world). 

Almost  on  the  same  day  the  National 
Congregational  Council  affirmed  its 
faith:  "We  must  set  before  us  the 
Church  of  Christ  as  he  would  have  it, 
one  spirit  and  one  body,  enriched  with 
all  those  elements  of  divine  truth  which 
the  separated  communities  of  Chris- 
tians now  emphasize  separately.  .  .  . 
This  Council  voices  its  earnest  hope 
for  closer  fellowship  with  the  Episco- 
pal Church  in  work  and  worship." 

Less  than  a  year  later  the  Northern 
Baptist  Convention  went  on  record  as 


1 68    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

follows:  "With  both  willingness  and 
humility  to  learn  from  others  any  as- 
pects of  the  way  of  life  which  we  may 
not  have  held  in  due  proportion,  we 
will  gladly  enter  into  a  Conference  of 
all  the  churches  of  Christ  looking  to- 
ward a  more  perfect  understanding 
and  a  clearer  insight  into  the  mind  of 
our  Saviour."  No  Christian,  no  lover 
of  humanity  can  read  such  utterances 
without  a  beating  heart,  as  one  who, 
after  a  dark  and  stormy  night,  sees 
the  unmistakable  gleaming  of  the  sun- 
rise. 

The  dangers  that  come  with  this 
larger  conception  of  fellowship  are  not 
all  imaginary.  There  is  a  real  possi- 
bility of  the  surrender  of  vital  truth. 
There  is  obvious  danger  that  all  in- 
tense belief  will  be  lost  in  mere  good- 
nature, and  that  we  shall  merge  our 
great  convictions  in  a  general  mush 
of  sentimentalism.  In  the  same  way 
schemes  for  international  arbitration 
may  weaken  the  strength  of  a  certain 
type  of  patriotism.  All  the  great 
unities  of  life  are  in  danger  of  blurring 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FELLOWSHIP       i6g 

useful  distinctions  in  thought  or  diver- 
sities in  action. 

But  in  spite  of  all  dangers  that  loom 
up  out  of  the  future,  and  all  the  diffi- 
culties that  stretch  their  protesting 
hands  out  of  the  past,  the  new  ideal 
of  fellowship  is  steadily  rising  in  the 
sky  and  flooding  all  the  fields  with 
light.  The  Federation  of  Churches 
recently  achieved  is  but  a  beginning. 
There  must  be  federation  not  only  in 
programmes  and  conventions  but  in 
actual  service  of  humanity,  in  the  pur- 
lieus of  our  cities,  in  the  farmhouses 
of  the  country-side,  in  the  care  of  the 
blind  and  the  sick  and  the  poor,  in  the 
protection  of  womanhood  and  child- 
hood. A  federated  church  will  be  great 
enough  in  horizon  and  leadership  and 
resources  to  attempt  many  tasks  in 
philanthropy  and  reform  which  no  de- 
nomination alone  might  dare  to  under- 
take. It  can  determine  by  conference 
with  the  state  what  shall  be  the  par- 
tition of  territory,  what  human  service 
can  best  be  handed  over  to  the  officials 
of  the  state.     But  it  will  be  powerful 


170    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

enough  to  hold  the  state  itself  to  Chris- 
tian conceptions  of  the  value  of  man- 
hood, the  responsibilities  of  brother- 
hood, the  pursuit  of  justice,  the  pro- 
tection of  the  weak  and  the  poor.  A 
united  Christian  church  will  ensure 
such  diffusion  of  Christian  ideals  as  to 
constitute  a  truly  Christian  state. 


LECTURE  V 

THE  AIM 
OF  EDUCATION 


\ 


What  boots  it  that  for  thee  Justinian 
The  bridle  mend,  if  empty  be  the  saddle? 
Dante:  Purgatorio  VI,  88 

My  purpose  holds 
To  sail  beyond  the   sunset,  and  the  baths 
Of  all  the  western  stars,  until  I  die. 

Made  weak  by  time  and  fate,  but  strong  in  will 
To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield. 
Tennyson:  Ulysses 


If  we  were  to  recast  Descartes'  formula  in  the 
light  of  all  that  has  come  and  gone  in  philosophy 
since  his  day,  not  Cogito,  ergo  sum,  but  Ago, 
ergo  sum  is  the  form  his  maxim  would  take. 

Andrew  Seth 


LECTURE  V 

THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION 

MODERN  psychology  makes 
the  will  the  core  of  the 
personality.  The  old  psy- 
chology made  the  reason,  the  ratio- 
cinative  power,  central.  It  was  be- 
lieved that  the  divine  image  was  in 
some  special  sense  resident  in  human 
reason.  "  O  God,"  cried  Kepler,  as  he 
swept  his  telescope  through  space,  "  I 
think  thy  thoughts  after  thee."  Truly 
the  power  to  think  is  that  which 
most  obviously  differentiates  men  from 
beasts.  While  the  brute  lives  for  the 
moment,  man  looks  before  and  after, 
he  forms  concepts,  plans,  generaliza- 
tions, theories,  he  reasons  from  point 
to  point;  and  so  marvellous  is  this 
power  that  many  have  said  with  Sir 
William  Hamilton:  "In  man  there  is 
nothing  great  but  mind." 
173 


174    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

But  modern  psychology  accepts  that 
dictum  only  with  reserve.  To  our  fore- 
most students  to-day  the  emotions 
seem  far  more  important  than  ever  be- 
fore, and  that  precipitation  of  emotion 
which  we  call  volition  is  the  most  im- 
portant of  all  the  processes  in  man's 
interior  life.  The  image  of  God,  after 
all,  is  not  to  be  found  in  a  man's 
reason, — can  we  believe  that  God 
reasons  from  cause  to  effect,  from  part 
to  whole,  from  premises  to  conclu- 
sion?— but  is  to  be  found  in  man's 
creative  will,  his  power  to  bring  to  pass 
what  did  not  before  exist.  Perhaps 
the  noblest  thought  of  God  we  can 
form  is  not  that  of  a  being  who 
eternally  reasons,  but  a  being  who  is 
in  eternal  and  irresistible  movement 
toward  righteousness.  A  righteous 
will-to-power  and  will-to-love  may  be 
our  highest  thought  of  the  Highest 
One.  But  whatever  theology  may  hold 
central  in  God,  modern  psychology  cer- 
tainly holds  that  the  will  is  the  central 
and  determining  factor  in  the  human 
personality.     Hence  the  central  task  of 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  175 

education  must  be  the  "training  of  the 
will. 

But  the  will  is  not  a  faculty  which 
can  be  separated  out  from  the  per- 
sonality and  separately  educated.  The 
old  "  faculty  psychology "  has  disap- 
peared from  our  books  and  our  labora- 
tories. We  no  longer  believe  that  a 
man's  mind  is  a  "  bundle  of  faculties  " 
as  his  body  is  an  assemblage  of  bones 
and  organs.  The  surgeon  can  open  the 
human  body  and  remove  certain  organs 
and  later  place  them  again  in  position. 
But  no  psychologist  can  segregate  a 
man's  memory  or  his  will  and  give  it 
a  separate  training.  The  memory  is 
the  man  remembering,  and  the  will 
is  the  man  willing.  The  will  is  the 
personality  in  movement.  Sometimes 
the  man  is  remembering,  and  then  we 
find  it  convenient  to  talk  of  his 
memory.  Sometimes  the  man  is 
imagining,  and  we  find  it  useful  to 
speak  of  his  imagination.  The  per- 
sonality certainly  has  powers  which 
can  be  exercised  in  various  ways,  now 
perceiving,    now   admiring,    now    hop- 


176    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

ing,  now  choosing,  and  when  we  find 
the  man's  interior  self  moving  de- 
cisively toward  some  person  or  object 
or  idea,  we  say  his  "  will  "  is  exerted. 
This  power  to  move  decisively  toward 
— or  away  from — the  good,  the  true 
and  the  beautiful  is  the  power  which 
to-day  most  needs  development  and 
training.  To  make  the  will  strong, 
flexible,  tenacious,  and  to  supply  it 
with  adequate  motives  is  the  highest 
aim  in  education. 

Yet,  strangely  enough,  this  is  not 
the  aim  of  most  teachers  or  schools 
to-day.  And  there  are  many  things  in 
modern  life  which  conspire  to  make 
the  will  flaccid  and  wobbling.  All 
around  us  multitudes  of  young  people 
are  growing  up  undisciplined  and 
sprawling,  like  a  vine  spreading  in  all 
directions  at  once,  but  remaining  un- 
pruned  and  shapeless.  What  are 
some  of  the  hindrances  to-day  to 
the  development  of  efficient  will- 
power? 

I.  The  emphasis  of  education  dur- 
ing the  last  hundred  years  has  been  on 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  177 

the  receptive  rather  than  the  motor 
powers.  The  best  public  schools  of 
New  England  even  thirty  years  ago 
never  taught  us  to  do  anything,  save 
to  write  and  speak  English.  Doing 
was  taught  on  the  farm,  remembering 
was  taught  in  the  school.  The  only 
training  of  the  hand  in  the  old-fash- 
ioned district  school  was  that  which 
came  from  pushing  a  pen  along  the 
lines  of  the  copy-book.  The  appren- 
ticeship on  the  farm  was  excellent 
training.  It  included  a  score  of  occu- 
pations, it  called  for  ingenuity,  ver- 
satility, persistent  toil,  fearless  facing 
of  heat  and  cold,  storm  and  drought, 
wild  beasts  and  birds  of  prey,  it  forced 
men  to  plough  and  reap  and  build  and 
paint,  to  fell  the  forest  and  watch  the 
sky  and  acquire  a  stock  of  homely 
knowledge  which  was  constantly  tested 
by  novel  emergencies.  It  was  not  a 
knowledge  of  facts  so  much  as  of  proc- 
esses and  modes  of  action.  Whittier 
has  described  this  homespun  education, 
this  training  for  action  given  to  every 
farmer's   boy: 


178    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

"Health  that  mocks  the  doctor's  rules, 
Knowledge  never  learned  of  schools : 
Of  the  wild  bee's  morning  chase, 
Of  the  wild-flower's  time  and  place, 
Flight  of  fowl  and  habitude 
Of  the  tenants  of  the  wood; 
How  the  tortoise  bears  his  shell, 
How  the  woodchuck  digs  his  cell, 
And  the  ground-mole  sinks  his  well, 
How  the    robin  feeds  her  young, 
How  the  oriole's  nest  is  hung; 

Of  the  black  wasp's  cunning  way, 
Mason  of  his  walls  of  clay, 
And  the  architectural  plans 
Of  gray  hornet  artisans. 
For,   eschewing  books  and  tasks, 
Nature  answers  all  he  asks; 
Hand  in  hand  with  her  he  walks, 
Face  to  face  with  her  he  talks." 

But  all  this  knowledge,  botanical, 
zoological,  agricultural,  architectural, 
— knowledge  of  how  things  are  done  by 
creatures  around  us — was  rigidly  ex- 
cluded from  the  "  little  red  school- 
house  "  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  With- 
in that  schoolhouse  "  the  three  Rs  " — 
mere  symbols  of  knowledge — reigned 
supreme.    Knowledge  was  to  be  found 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  179 

in  books,  and  to  absorb  "  book-learn- 
ing "  was  to  become  educated.  The 
school  was  thus  not  participation  in 
real  life,  but  only  preparation  for  life. 
It  was  completely  enmeshed  in  what 
Miss  Jane  Addams  calls  "  the  snare  of 
preparation."  Not  one  of  the  tasks  im- 
posed by  the  school  teacher  was 
significant  and  beautiful  in  itself,  but 
only  to  be  patiently  endured  in  the 
meek  hope  that  it  would  lead  to  some- 
thing significant  and  beautiful  in  after 
life.  The  spelling  lesson  was  a  study 
of  curiously  lawless  and  irrational 
forms — as  it  is  still.  The  multiplica- 
tion table  was  a  sheer  drill  in  memory 
— as  it  forever  must  be.  Worst  of  all, 
the  child  in  the  schoolhouse  was  re- 
quired to  spell  without  any  object  in 
view,  to  a  person  who  already  knew 
how  to  do  it,  or  required  to  reckon 
when  there  was  nothing  to  buy  or  sell 
or  to  reckon  about.  Education  in  that 
day  was  saved  from  complete  failure 
by  the  many  tasks  outside  the  school 
which  did  force  the  growing  boy  or 
girl  into  decisive  and  creative  action; 


i8o    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

but  the  school  itself  was  quite  separate 
from  the  inventive,  constructive  work 
of  the  farmer,  the  merchant,  the  manu- 
facturer. To-day  our  schools  are  be- 
ginning to  see  a  new  light.  They  are 
pulsating  with  a  new  ideal.  We  may 
call  the  new  method  by  various  names 
— manual  training,  industrial  training, 
vocational  training,  "  learning  by  do- 
ing,"— the  essential  idea  of  it  all  is  a 
new  and  vital  relation  of  learning  to 
life.  But  that  relation  was  for  a  cen- 
tury ignored  and  forgotten  in  Ameri- 
can  schools. 

2.  A  second  cause  of  our  difficulty 
is  the  general  decay  of  authority  in  our 
civilization,  especially  in  the  home.  It 
has  been  remarked  that  there  is  just 
as  much  authority  in  the  home  as  ever 
there  was,  but  that  now  it  is  exercised 
by  the  children.  Is  it  that  the  doctrine 
of  evolution,  superficially  understood, 
has  taken  the  heart  out  of  the  cate- 
gorical imperative,  so  that  duty  of  any 
unconditional  kind  is  now  resented? 
Certainly  parental  authority  is  now 
feebly    asserted    and    stoutly    resisted, 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  l8l 

church  authority  has  waned,  and  the 
majesty  of  the  law  hardly  survives  the 
current  explanations  of  its  origin  or 
the  current  criticism  of  its  administra- 
tion. But  the  child  who  has  not 
learned  to  obey  has  been  deprived  of 
one  of  the  best  parts  of  his  heritage. 
Unless  he  has  learned  in  infancy  to  re- 
strain himself  for  no  other  reason  than 
because  he  is  ordered  to  do  so  by  su- 
perior wisdom,  he  remains  a  wild,  un- 
civilized force,  a  menace  to  the  com- 
munity. Such  menaces  are  all  about 
us  to-day.  Better  the  harsh  military 
discipline  of  Germany,  requiring  of 
every  young  man  two  or  three  of  his 
most  precious  years  for  military  serv- 
ice— better  that,  than  a  generation 
which  resents  all  authority  and  con- 
fuses liberty  with  anarchy. 

3.  Weakness  of  will  is  promoted 
also  by  material  plenty  and  luxury. 
"  Endure  hardness  as  a  good  soldier  " 
has  a  queer  and  far-away  sound,  when 
spoken  to  the  youth  lolling  in  a  friend's 
automobile  or  attending  the  elaborate 
banquet   of  his   fraternity.     The   auto- 


1 82    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

mobile  we  cannot  condemn  as  of  the 
evil  one,  but  the  evils  that  flow  through 
it  into  young  lives  are  patent  and  mani- 
fold. Only  parental  blindness  can  al- 
low a  college  Freshman  to  have  a  high- 
powered  motor-car  constantly  at  his 
disposal.  It  gives  him  too  long  a 
radius.  This  evening  he  is  in  one  city, 
to-morrow  in  another,  the  next  day  in 
another  state,  and  his  rapid  change  of 
place  may  mean  change  of  friends,  or 
habits,  or  convictions,  or  moral  code. 
A  soul,  like  a  tree,  needs  some  physical 
rootage.  A  man,  at  least  in  his  youth, 
must  be  thrust  in  somewhere,  and 
made  to  stay  put,  until  his  character 
is  formed. 

But  even  when  the  boy  does  remain 
in  one  home  or  one  school,  it  is  not 
easy  to  keep  the  sturdy  Puritan  char- 
acter amid  luxurious  surroundings. 
"  It  is  possible,"  as  Marcus  Aurelius 
said,  "  to  be  noble,  even  in  a  palace," — 
possible,  but  difficult.  Where  there 
are  no  household  "  chores "  to  do,  it 
is  hard  to  inculcate  the  idea  of  per- 
sonal service.     When  the  child  knows 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  183 

that  he  can  never  by  any  possibility 
come  to  want,  the  great  natural  in- 
centive to  effort  is  removed.  "  Why 
should  I  learn  to  write?"  grumbled 
one  millionaire's  child;  a  when  I  am 
older  I  can  hire  somebody  to  do  it  for 


me." 


4.  But  one  of  the  most  potent  forces 
in  weakening  the  will  is  the  crowding 
of  the  population  and  the  crowding  of 
tasks.  Dwellers  in  tenement  houses 
and  flats  do  not  naturally  develop  the 
independence  which  comes  with  sep- 
arate dwellings,  separate  responsibili- 
ties, and  a  visible  place  in  the  social 
order.  "  Strap-hangers  "  in  street-cars 
not  only  are  forced  to  violate  respect 
and  courtesy  toward  others,  but  they 
cannot  demand  it  for  themselves.  They 
lose  respect  for  their  own  personality 
after  being  daily  buffeted  and  shoved 
by  their  fellow-men.  And  the  crowd- 
ing of  tasks  means  that  many  men  lose 
their  life  in  making  their  living.  They 
are  relentlessly  driven  by  engagements, 
weighted  down  like  beasts  of  burden. 
"  Things    are    in   the    saddle    and   ride 


184    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

mankind."  The  amplitude  of  person- 
ality which  characterized  "  the  scholar 
and  the  gentleman  "  of  fifty  years  ago 
is  now  so  rare  as  to  seem  quaint.  One 
writer  has  called  attention  to  the  con- 
trast between  the  faces  of  the  founders 
of  the  republic  as  seen  in  their  famous 
portraits,  and  the  faces  of  our  public 
leaders  to-day.  The  contrast  between 
the  physiognomy  of  Washington  and 
Adams  and  Jefferson — so  calm  and 
self-contained  and  finely  poised — and 
the  nervous  tension  seen  in  the  faces 
of  our  present  leaders  is  surely  not 
imaginary.  We  do  not  say  that  one 
type  of  men  is  better  than  the  other, 
but  we  are  sure  they  are  not  the  same. 
It  is  a  hurried  world  we  live  in.  And 
there  is  less  need  of  hurry  in  our  age 
than  in  any  preceding,  because  we  have 
steam  and  electricity  to  hurry  for  us, 
while  we  sit  calmly  giving  them  our 
orders.  In  an  age  of  such  complete 
apparatus  for  living,  there  is  no  pos- 
sible excuse  for  fretting  and  anxiety. 
But  we  seem  to  serve  our  machines  in- 
stead  of  making   them   serve   us,   and 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  185 

so  wejsee  around  us  men  of  haste  with- 
out resolve,  of  hurry  without  an  object, 
of  swift  travelling  but  never  arriving, 
of  much  ambition  and  little  will.  We 
see  men  intensely  active  by  fits  and 
starts,  but  whose  wills  are  untrained, 
immature,  and  either  flabby  or  violent, 
when  they  should  share  in  the  calm- 
ness of  the  stars  above  us: 

"Unaff righted  by  the  silence  round  them, 
Undistracted  by  the  sights  they  see." 

But  enough  of  diagnosis.  What 
shall  we  say  of  remedy?  How  can  we 
give  strength  and  direction  to  the  will- 
power of  our  generation? 

Nothing  can  be  more  effective  than 
the  deeper  absorption  of  the  message 
of  the  Bible.  For  the  Bible  is  essen- 
tially dynamic.  It  belongs — to  adopt 
De  Ouincey's  distinction — not  to  the 
literature  of  knowledge  but  to  the  lit- 
erature of  power.  It  aims  straight  at 
man's  power  of  volition.  It  cares  com- 
paratively little  for  the  spread  of 
knowledge.    It  has,  of  course,  no  scien- 


1 86    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

tific  interest.  Whether  the  Old  Testa- 
ment classification  of  the  animals  that 
chew  the  cud  and  divide  the  hoof  is 
scientifically  correct  or  not,  none  of  us 
care  to  discuss.  Whether  the  cos- 
mogony of  Genesis  is  in  accord  with 
geology  is  a  question  far  less  impor- 
tant to  us  than  to  our  fathers.  The 
Bible  has  no  interest  in  geology,  or 
astronomy,  or  even  in  psychology.  It 
is  bent  on  one  thing — moving  the  will 
to  righteousness.  Every  historian  in 
the  Bible  has  a  point  to  prove,  and  an 
effect  he  is  trying  to  produce.  Every 
writing  in  the  Bible  is  a  Tendenzschrift. 
The  Biblical  historians  belong  to  the 
school  of  Froude,  not  that  of  Freeman. 
They  care  nothing  for  scientific  im- 
partiality— which  in  history  has  often 
meant  dulness  and  insipidity — but 
they  write,  as  Macaulay,  and  Gibbon 
and  all  the  great  historians,  to  support 
a  certain  theory  of  life  and  to  produce 
in  their  readers  a  certain  attitude  to- 
ward life. 

Jesus  makes  eternal  life  or  death  to 
hang  on  action  or  non-action.     "  Inas- 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  187 

much  as  ye  did  it  not,"  is  the  pre- 
lude to  the  outer  darkness.  '  Ye  will 
not  come  unto  me  that  ye  might  have 
life  "  is  Christ's  condemnation  of  reli- 
gious leaders  around  him.  '  Thy  will 
be  done  as  in  heaven  so  on  earth,"  is 
his  greatest  prayer.  He  has  no  inter- 
est in  knowledge  in  the  sense  of  mere 
cognition,  separate  from  action.  Or 
rather  would  I  say  that  to  him,  as  to 
the  pragmatist  of  our  time,  knowledge 
is  a  species  of  action,  is  the  soul  in 
movement,  and  not  merely  in  recogni- 
tion or  contemplation. 

Thus  the  whole  Bible  mightily  re- 
enforces  man's  power  of  moral  voli- 
tion. Its  heroes  are  all  men  of  action. 
Through  faith  they  did  not  draw  up 
creeds,  or  define  metaphysical  terms — 
that  was  the  task  of  later  Christian 
centuries — "  through  faith  they  sub- 
dued kingdoms,  wrought  righteous- 
ness, put  to  flight  armies  of  aliens." 
The  first  apostles  conceived  their  gos- 
pel as  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation, 
and  they  thought  of  it  not  under  philo- 
sophical categories,  like  "  person  "  and 


1 88    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

"  substance  "  and  "  attribute/'  but  in 
dynamic  forms — the  "  giving  of  a  cup 
of  cold  water,"  the  "  doing  of  signs  and 
wonders  in  the  name  of  Jesus."  None 
of  the  writers  of  the  Bible  were  phi- 
losophers, if  we  except  the  Apostle 
Paul,  and  his  theology  was  the  by- 
product of  his  missionary  labours. 
Those  men  were  all  absorbed  in  the 
problem  of  creating  righteous  human 
wills,  and  so  establishing  a  righteous 
society  which  shall  reflect  and  incar- 
nate the  will  of  a  righteous  God.  They 
have  a  passion  for  conduct. 

Indeed  the  Hebrew  and  the  Teutonic 
races  have  been  the  great  bearers  of 
conscience  in  the  ancient  and  the  mod- 
ern world.  The  modern  Latin  peoples 
of  southern  Europe  have  followed  the 
ancient  Greeks  in  keeping  alive  the  love 
of  beauty.  But  it  was  the  soul  of  the 
Hebrew  race  that  uttered  the  audacious 
cry :  "  Must  not  even  the  judge  of 
all  the  earth  do  right?  "  and  it  was  the 
soul  of  all  the  Teutonic  peoples  that 
spoke  through  Luther  when  he  cried: 
"I   can  do  no   other:   God   help   me!" 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  189 

American  life  is  steadily  acquiring  new 
regard  for  beauty  of  form,  of  colour 
and  material.  It  is  for  us  to  insist 
that  it  is  so  fed  from  the  great  moral 
leaders  of  the  past  that  it  shall  not 
cease  to  be  strong  in  moral  energy,  in 
strength  of  will.  It  is  for  us  to  see 
that  our  flamboyant  speeches  about 
American  destiny  shall  give  way  to  the 
higher  thought  of  American  duty,  and 
that  our  whole  nation  shall  dare  to  say: 
"  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  O  God." 

But  far  outside  the  Biblical  message 
we  may  find  vast  stores  of  material 
for  educating  the  feelings  in  which  the 
will  originates.  The  heart  is  at  last  com- 
ing to  its  own  in  education.  We  now 
see  not  only  that  it  is  impossible  to 
dissect  out  a  boy's  mind  and  educate 
that  alone,  but  that  his  purely  mental 
part,  if  we  could  separate  it,  is  not 
what  most  needs  education.  It  is  the 
sentiments,  the  hidden  sources  of  char- 
acter that  most  need  training.  Those 
sentiments  are  the  driving  wheels  of 
the  soul.  If  they  are  feeble  and  im- 
poverished,  there   is   only  a   feeble   re- 


190    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

action  on  experience  and  a  feeble  will 
to  move  in  any  direction.  If  they  are 
vigorous  and  swift,  then  there  is  a 
strong  will  which  can  be  turned  toward 
virtue.  An  old  proverb  says  that  "  it 
is  not  the  rearing,  but  the  dead  horse, 
that  is  hardest  to  drive. "  Surely  no 
sane  teacher  tries  to  "  break  "  a  boy's 
will.  No  wise  teacher  thinks  that  a 
good  boy  means  one  who  sits  still,  and 
always  has  clean  hands,  and  never 
causes  any  trouble  to  anybody.  If  that 
is  all  you  can  say  of  a  boy,  be  sure 
he  is  in  moral  peril;  he  may  be  the 
first  to  go  to  the  devil.  Goodness  is 
energy.  It  is  not  the  absence  of  faults, 
it  is  the  presence  of  moral  dynamic. 
/The  boy  who  has  deep  strong  passions 
/  has  the  raw  material  out  of  which 
heroes  are  made.  He  at  least  has 
something  to  educate.  He  is  no  tabula 
rasa,  he  is  a  steam-engine  standing  on 
the  track  with  steam  up.  The  prob- 
lem is  not  to  make  him  go — nature  has 
attended  to  that — but  simply  to  make 
him  go  in  the  right  direction. 

The  education  of  the  feelings  is  then 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  191 

the  first  task  of  the  moral  trainer.  The 
act  of  willing  cannot  be  severed  from 
the  feelings  that  go  before  it.  The 
constantly  recurring  feelings  wear 
channels  in  the  brain.  The  angry 
feeling,  if  it  persists,  will  eventuate 
sooner  or  later  in  the  angry  deed.  The 
lustful  images,  accompanied  by  ever 
recurring  pleasure,  will  at  last  issue, 
almost  automatically,  in  the  lustful 
deed.  No  one  can  permanently  feel 
one  way  and  act  another.  No  one  can 
think  habitually  about  the  evil  and  act 
the  good.  Hence  to  cultivate  right 
feelings  and  attitudes  toward  what- 
ever is  lovely  and  of  good  report  is  to 
make  it  sure  that  in  the  end  the  deeds 
will  be  noble  and  worthy.  We  have 
grown  foolishly  afraid  of  emotion, 
partly  because  of  inherited  Puritanic 
disdain  for  effuse  expression,  and 
partly  as  a  reaction  from  the  senti- 
mental books  of  our  childhood.  Yet  a 
man's  feelings  are  the  source  both  of 
his  opinions  and  his  volitions.  Out  of 
the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life.  We 
must  stir  up  in  our  children  vigorous 


192    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

likes   and   dislikes,    for   these   are    em- 
bryonic volitions. 

Furthermore,  we  must  reconceive 
and  restate  the  aim  of  all  study.  We 
must  insist  that  all  studies  in  school 
and  college  are  "  instrumental,"  are 
intended  not  merely  to  put  us  in  touch 
with  the  past,  but  to  give  us  control 
of  the  future.  The  traditional  idea  of 
teaching  has  been  that  the  function  of 
the  school  is  to  hand  down  a  body  of 
knowledge,  to  put  the  child  into  the 
possession  of  a  certain  valuable  herit- 
age. But  why  is  the  heritage  valuable 
— valuable  for  what?  Surely  valuable 
in  enabling  the  child  to  solve  his  own 
problems,  to  control  his  own  situation 
and  to  serve  his  own  generation.  There 
is  nothing  that  is  worth  knowing  ex- 
cept as  an  aid  in  doing.  A  life  of 
mere  cognition  or  consideration  is  de- 
void of  all  worth.  Merely  learning 
things,  with  no  sense  of  their  value, 
and  no  desire  to  use  them  in  action,  is 
a  machine-like  and  immoral  process. 
The  whole  object  of  the  school  training 
is  to  put   us   in  possession   of  knowl- 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  193 

edge  as  a  means  of  control,  as  equip- 
ment for  serviceable  living.  Nothing 
is  worth  knowing  unless  it  is  trans- 
lated into  life.  "  Knowledge  for  its 
own  sake,"  like  "  art  for  art's  sake," 
is  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  Knowledge 
for  life's  sake  is  the  only  aim  that  can 
justify  the  existence  of  a  school. 

From  this  point  of  view  all  think- 
ing is  purposive,  and  all  study  is  an 
attempt  to  get  control  of  environment, 
and  all  the  studies  in  every  school  are 
instruments  whereby  the  student  be- 
comes socially  efficient.  This  concep- 
tion is  in  many  of  our  schools  working 
a  revolution.  Why  does  a  boy  study 
elementary  German?  The  old  educa- 
tion answered:  "Because  he  needs 
discipline,  or  because  all  educated  men 
read  German,  or  because  he  will  find 
life-long  pleasure  in  reading  it,  or  be- 
cause his  sentiments  will  be  refined 
and  his  imagination  strengthened  by 
reading  it."  But  the  new  education 
answers:  "Because  by  this  study  he 
will  acquire  a  valuable  instrument  in 
social  service;  because  he  will  thereby 


194    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

become  a  more  useful  citizen,  a  more 
efficient  helper,  a  wiser  guide  and 
leader  of  men."  If  we  adopt  this  sec- 
ond answer,  our  entire  method  of 
studying  German — and  studying  every- 
thing else — will  be  opposed  to  the  re- 
ceptive and  passive  attitude  encour- 
aged by  the  purely  cultural  ideals  of 
the  last  century.  We  shall  hold  that 
no  subject  in  school  or  college  curric- 
ulum is  sacred  or  eternal,  but  that 
every  study  is  merely  a  means  to  an 
end.  We  shall  conceive  all  studies, 
all  scientific  theories,  all  objects  used 
in  study  as  instrumental  and  pur- 
posive.* 

"  A  unit  of  subject  matter,"  says 
Professor  Charters,  "  is  a  way  of  acting. 
.  .  .  Tennyson's  Crossing  the  Bar  is  a 
way  of  thinking  and  feeling  about 
death.  .  .  .  Multiplication    is    a    short 

*  "  The  definitions,  axioms,  propositions,  with  which 
Euclid  makes  us  familiar,  are  instrumental  concep- 
tions whose  validity  is  guaranteed  by  no  independent 
existence,  but  by  the  extent  to  which  they  answer  in 
experience  to  the  demands  we  make  upon  them." — 
Professor  J.  H.  Muirhead  in  "Ideals  of  Science  and 
Faith,"  p.  98. 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  195 

way  of  adding,  as  division  is  a  short 
way  of  subtracting.  ...  A  hammer 
is  a  way  of  driving  nails.  A  clock  is 
a  way  of  telling  time.  .  .  .  The  map  is 
a  way  of  exhibiting  geographical  facts. 
.  .  .  An  institution  (e.g.,  Presbyterian- 
ism)  is  a  way  of  acting."  From  the 
same  standpoint  Professor  Bagley 
writes:  "My  concept  of  water  is 
simply  the  centre  of  a  vast  number 
of  possibilities  of  conduct — drinking, 
bathing,  swimming,  drowning,  pour- 
ing, sailing,  looking  at,  admiring,  etc."* 
All  around  us  are  helpless  people 
whose  knowledge  is  a  decoration,  a 
badge  of  social  standing,  a  personal 
luxury,  and  not  an  instrument  of 
action.  We  see  them  sitting  in  libraries 
and  reading  rooms,  endlessly  absorb- 
ing printed  matter  as  blotting  paper 
absorbs  ink.  They  drink  in  vast  quan- 
tities of  novels,  newspapers,  stray 
scraps  of  useless  information,  but  they 
are  dreamers  only,  mental  sponges  that 
produce  nothing  and  change  nothing. 
The  more  knowledge  they  acquire  the 

*"  Methods  of  Teaching,"  p.  25. 


196    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

worse  is  their  condition,  since  every 
idea  carried  in  the  mind  without  re- 
action, without  motor  response,  tends 
to  render  the  mind  feeble  and  inca- 
pable of  action.  Men  and  women  are 
ends  in  themselves,  but  books,  studies, 
schools  are  simply  instruments  by 
which  human  beings  are  trained  to 
appropriate,  efficient,  virtuous  action. 

But  another  necessity,  quite  distinct, 
is  the  acquisition  of  the  power  of  vol- 
untary attention.  Involuntary  atten- 
tion we  all  possess.  When  the  boy  in 
the  schoolhouse  spies  through  the  win- 
dow a  balloon  slowly  rising  into  the 
sky,  there  is  no  trouble  about  atten- 
tion. Everything  that  he  has  known 
or  felt  disappears  instantly,  while  his 
total  inner  self  is  focussed  on  the  dark 
object  climbing  in  the  sky.  But  when 
the  balloon  has  faded  into  the  clouds, 
can  the  boy  then  turn  back  to  the 
problem  in  arithmetic,  and  without  the 
stimulus  of  the  visual  object  concen- 
trate his  attention  on  the  task  in  hand? 
If  he  cannot,  he  is  still  an  infant,  not 
only  mentally   immature,   but   morally 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  197 

in  danger.  Voluntary  attention  means 
the  power  to  hold  an  idea  in  the  focus 
of  the  mind  and  keep  it  there  until  it 
has  done  its  work;  to  hold  it  there 
in  spite  of  distaste,  or  weariness,  or 
pain.  In  other  words,  it  is  a  species  of 
courage.  In  other  words,  attention  is 
morality.  Perhaps,  as  many  students 
say,  our  free  will,  so  much  discussed, 
is  simply  the  power  to  attend  to  an 
idea  and  hold  it  steadily  before  the 
mind.  If  held  long  enough  and  clearly 
enough  and  vividly  enough,  action 
must  follow. 

And  precisely  at  this  point  our  gen- 
eration oftenest  fails.  Our  children 
are  far  more  interesting  and  versatile 
than  we  ourselves  were  at  the  same 
age;  they  have  far  greater  range  of 
knowledge,  more  curiosity,  and  more 
contacts  with  the  world.  But  they  do 
not  begin  to  equal  their  fathers  in 
power  of  voluntary  attention.  Our 
whole  generation  suffers  from  what  it 
calls  nervousness  and  restlessness,  but 
what  Professor  Miinsterberg  affirms  is 
merely    lack    of   the    power   to    attend 


198    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

steadily  to  the  thing  in  hand.  He 
says:  "That  from  which  the  people 
really  suffer,  and  perhaps  suffer  more 
I  than  any  other  nation  is  weakness  of 
attention.  .  .  .  The  real  development 
of  mankind  lies  in  the  growth  of  the 
voluntary  attention  which  is  not  pass- 
ively attracted,  but  which  turns  act- 
ively to  that  which  is  important  or 
significant  and  valuable  in  itself.  No 
one  is  born  with  such  power.  It  has 
to  be  trained  and  educated.  Yet,  per- 
haps the  deepest  meaning  of  education 
is  to  secure  this  mental  energy  which 
emancipates  itself  from  haphazard 
stimulation  of  the  world,  and  firmly 
holds  that  which  conforms  to  our  pur- 
pose and  ideals. " 

The  lack  of  this  power  is  the  com- 
plaint of  all  our  teachers  to-day.  Dean 
Shaler,  so  long  a  beloved  teacher  at 
Harvard  University,  wrote:  "The 
youths  of  to-day  have  far  less  capacity 
for  serious  work  than  their  fathers. 
There  has  been  a  serious  degradation 
of  the  capacity  for  attention  in  the  less 
studious  half  of  the  college  men." 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  199 

Recently  I  met  a  college  Sophomore 
in  a  college  library,  bending  with  a 
puzzled  look  over  certain  volumes  from 
which  he  was  vainly  endeavouring  to 
extract  the  meaning.  "  How  in  the 
world,"  he  said,  "  does  a  man  learn 
to  sit  down  with  a  book  for  a  whole 
hour  at  a  time?  After  the  first  five 
minutes  I  find  myself  looking  out  of 
the  window."  He  was  trying  at 
twenty  years  of  age  to  form  the  ele- 
mentary habits  of  attention  and  con- 
centration which  he  should  have 
formed  at  ten.  Yet  he  was  personally 
one  of  the  most  versatile  and  delight- 
ful of  young  men.  He  was  simply  the 
victim  of  an  inefficient  school,  sur- 
rounded by  a  distracting  social  life. 
It  is  the  general  conviction  of  the 
college  teachers  who  take  our  boys  at 
eighteen  or  nineteen — it  is  too  soon  to 
generalize  regarding  girls — that  they 
know  about  far  more  things,  but 
think  less  closely  and  clearly  than  did 
the  students  of  thirty  years  ago. 

One  reason  for  this  is  doubtless  to 
be    found    in    the    universal    reaction 


200    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

from  the  formal  drill,  the  constant 
reiteration,  and  the  persistent  review 
which  characterized  the  teaching  of 
the  earlier  time.  In  some  schools  the 
pendulum  has  swung  so  far  that  the 
clock  has  almost  stopped.  We  would 
not  revive  the  abstractions  and  tor- 
tures of  Colburn's  "  mental  arithme- 
tic," but  we  may  be  allowed  to  ques- 
tion the  sufficiency  of  a  method  which 
teaches  arithmetic  without  a  multipli- 
cation table,  Latin  without  declension 
and  conjugation,  Greek  without  a  lexi- 
con, English  without  grammar,  and  in 
general,  conquest  without  strain  or 
struggle.  To  induce  struggle  for  its 
own  sake  is  indeed  absurd;  it  is  akin 
to  the  paganism  which  puts  peas  in 
one's  shoes  in  order  to  win  heaven  by 
a  painful  journey.  But  to  banish  strug- 
gle as  essentially  evil  is  both  unpeda- 
gogical  and  immoral. 

In  a  famous  school  I  saw  many 
small  children  who  had  been  engaged 
for  nearly  two  years  in  playing  with 
coloured  worsteds  and  cardboard,  in 
novel  games  and  songs.     I  said  to  the 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  201 

teacher:  "What  does  the  modern 
school  do  to  prepare  boys  and  girls 
to  face  the  disagreeable  things  of 
after  life?"  Opening  wide  her  eyes 
in  surprise  at  my  innocence,  she  an- 
swered: "But  there  are  no  disagree- 
able things  in  life  to  one  who  views 
it  rightly!"  That  was  a  fine  bit  of 
Emersonian  transcendentalism.  But 
a  far  sounder  educational  philosophy 
is  to  be  found  in  the  virile  optimism  of 
Robert  Browning: 

"Rejoice  I  can 
Be  crossed  and  thwarted  as  a  man, 
Not  left  in  God's  contempt  apart, 
To  live  a  ghastly  smooth  life  dead  at  heart." 

The  object  in  using  the  gifts  and 
games  of  Froebel  is  to  train  the  child 
as  soon  as  possible  to  do  without 
them.  It  is  beautiful  indeed  to  see  the 
children  handling  bright-colored  yarns 
and  leaping  about  the  room  while  they 
pretend  they  are  butterflies  or  birds. 
Yet  human  life  has  in  it  something 
sterner  than  bright  yarns,  and  in  one 


202    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

or  two  important  respects  the  life  of 
a  boy,  or  even  a  girl,  should  differ 
from  that  of  the  butterfly.  Gifts  and 
games  are  valuable;  the  old  education 
was  sadly  defective  without  them. 
But  the  question  still  remains  whether 
the  boy  can  fall  downstairs  without 
crying,  and  tell  the  truth  when  it 
hurts  him,  and  learn  the  multiplication 
table  without  whining,  and  master  a 
difficulty  without  the  promise  of  sugar, 
and  face  the  little,  but  real,  battles  of 
his  own  intellectual  and  moral  life 
without  running  away. 

We  cannot  of  course  lay  the  blame 
for  all  the  defects  of  our  generation 
at  the  door  of  the  school.  Super- 
ficiality in  the  school  is  only  the 
diminished  shadow  of  haste  and  super- 
ficiality in  our  national  life.  The 
newspaper  habit  has  taken  for  most 
men  the  place  of  serious  reading.  Our 
age  demands  "  snap-shots  "  at  knowl- 
edge rather  than  "  time-exposures." 
The  short  story,  vivacious  and 
piquant,  has  supplanted  Thackeray 
and  Scott.     The  lecture  must  be  illus- 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  203 

trated  by  calcium  light,  or  we  think 
it  dull.  The  preacher  must  not  exceed 
twenty-five  minutes,  or  we  pull  out  the 
watch.  The  magazine  must  teem  with 
pictures,  and  have  a  purple  and  gold 
cover,  or  it  will  never  be  purchased 
by  the  man  running  for  a  ferry-boat. 
We  have  to  battle  with  the  failings  of 
our  age,  whether  in  school  or  church 
or  society. 

But  these  things  must  not  discour- 
age us.  These  are  the  defects  of  our 
qualities.  The  new  world  in  which  we 
live  is  so  marvellous  that  it  has  daz- 
zled us.  We  have  stood  crying,  like 
Shakespeare's  Miranda:  "  O,  brave 
new  world!  how  goodly  mankind  is!" 
We  have  had  thrust  upon  us  more 
new  facts  than  we  could  attend  to,  and 
we  are  bewildered.  In  due  time  we 
shall  find  our  way  to  an  ordered 
and  organized  life,  with  poise  and  re- 
pose of  spirit.  Meanwhile  if  we  want 
to  develop  the  strong  wills  that  shall 
be  competent  to  control  the  vast 
forces  of  our  civilization,  here  is  the 
way  to  do  it.     It  is  useless  to  exhort 


204   WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

men  to  be  strong,  useless  to  attack 
the  weak  will  with  punishment.  We 
must  begin  with  the  deeper  interests 
of  the  soul  and  cultivate  them.  Hun- 
dreds of  teachers  are  now  bidding  us 
appeal  to  the  "  interest "  of  our  pupils. 
But  the  real  and  permanent  "  inter- 
est "  of  the  soul  is  something  far 
deeper  than  its  transient  desires.  The 
real  interest  of  man  is  in  doing  hard 
things  for  the  sake  of  a  distant  end. 
The  real  interest  of  the  boy  is  not  in 
an  easy  life  in  a  cosy  corner.  The  most 
interesting  thing  in  the  world  is  effort. 
When  Captain  Macmillan,  the  com- 
panion of  Lieutenant  Peary,  after  the 
long  months  of  Arctic  isolation  and 
cold  and  darkness,  at  last  reached,  on 
the  return,  an  outpost  of  civilization, 
he  telegraphed  to  his  home:  "Best 
year  of  my  life.''  Evidently  to  him 
the  best  year  was  not  the  easiest  one. 
When  we  demand  of  our  students  that 
they  accompany  us  in  difficult  intel- 
lectual adventure,  that  they  put  aside 
ease  and  sloth  and  luxury  and  con- 
centrate   their    attention    on    arduous 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  205 

endeavour,    we    are    appealing    to    the 
permanent  interests  of  humanity. 

Interest  and  attention,  which  are  the 
roots    of    the    will,    speedily    pass — we 
cannot     help     it     if     we     would — into 
action.      Action    repeated    becomes    a 
habit,    and    habit    soon    deepens    into 
character.     Action,   visible   and   public 
action,  greatly  strengthens  the  will  by 
committing  the  man  irrevocably  to  a 
certain  kind  of  life.     The  public  pro- 
fession  of  religion   is   from   a   psycho- 
logical   standpoint    of    great    value    in 
strengthening  the  will,  just  as  the  put- 
ting on  of  the  uniform  is  an  extraor- 
dinary  re-enforcement    of   the    loyalty 
of  the  soldier.    A  man  might  say:     "  I 
want  to  be  a  soldier,  but  I  refuse  the 
meaningless    trappings    of    patriotism. 
I  want  no  uniform,  no  flag,  no  martial 
music.      I    scorn    such    material    em- 
blems, and  rely  on  my  own  will-power 
alone."      Such    a   man   is    ignorant    of 
himself  and  of  humanity.     The  public 
commitment  beyond  recall,   the  public 
declaration  made  by  banners  and  bugle 
and     marching     host,     has     profound 


206  WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

effect  in  strengthening  each  individual 
soldier's  will.  So  the  college  diploma 
and  the  college  colours  and  the  col- 
lege song  strangely  re-enforce  the  de- 
sire of  the  college  student  for  an  edu- 
cation. 

So  the  church  with  its  solemn  pub- 
lic consecration  confirms  the  feeble 
will  in  paths  of  loyalty  and  service. 
Every  public  act  by  which  a  man 
utters  his  religious  conviction  deepens 
that  conviction  into  a  more  lasting 
and  victorious  force.  To  say  "  I 
will "  in  the  secret  chamber  and  say 
it  once  is  not  enough.  We  must  say 
it  a  thousand  times  in  public  and 
private,  say  it  in  solemn  symbol  and 
venerable  formula,  say  it  with  every 
sunrise  and  every  sunset,  until  any 
reversal  or  retreat  is  impossible  and 
inconceivable.  The  great  leaders  of 
men  have  been  those  who  possessed 
this  power  of  the  ceaseless  reiteration 
of  themselves  in  high  resolve.  The 
men  we  need  to-day  are  those  who 
have  gotten  out  of  school  and  church 
not  only  pleasant  thoughts   of  a  pos- 


THE  AIM  OF  EDUCATION  207 

sible  goodness,  but  the  power  of  self- 
dedication  to  a  worthy  and  distant 
end,  the  power  to  yield  irreversibly  to 
goodness  and  beauty  and  truth.  He 
who  does  that  can  say  not  only:  "I 
think  thy  thoughts  after  thee,"  but 
"  I  share  thine  eternal  purpose  with 
thee.',  Here  is  the  goal  and  crown 
of  Christian  education. 


LECTURE  VI 

THE  GOAL  OF 
OUR  EFFORT 


He  seems  to  hear  a  Heavenly  friend, 
And  through  thick  veils  to  apprehend 
A  labour  working  to  an  end. 

Tennyson:  The  Two  Voices 

dio?  6Jere\ehro  fiovXr/. 
(And  the  plan  of  Zeus  was  working  out  its 
fulfillment.) 

Iliad  I,  5 

By  faith  we  may  feel  ourselves  citizens  of  an 
eternal  and  glorious  cosmogony,  of  mutual  help 
and  cooperation,  advancing  from  lowly  stages 
to  ever  higher  states  of  happy  activity,  world 
without  end. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 

Looking  for  and  hastening  the  coming  of  the 
Day  of  God. 

//  Peter  3:12. 


LECTURE  VI 

THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT 

OUR  generation  is  remarkable 
for  having  an  immense  num- 
ber of  tools  to  work  with,  and 
for  being  quite  uncertain  how  to  use 
them.  The  apparatus  of  living  has 
been  multiplied  beyond  all  prece- 
dent, but  the  goal  of  life,  perfectly 
clear  to  our  Puritan  fathers,  now 
seems  obscured.  Our  generation  is 
like  a  child  sitting  before  a  dissected 
map  or  a  "picture  puzzle";  the  child 
faces  a  mass  of  dislocated  pieces,  but 
has  no  clue  to  their  arrangement  and 
meaning.  The  equipment  of  civiliza- 
tion has  amazingly  advanced,  from  the 
stage-coach  to  the  aeroplane,  from 
the  tallow  candle  to  the  incandescent 
lamp,  from  the  quill  pen  to  the  type- 
writer. Never  did  any  former  age 
have   such   wealth   of   things   to   work 

211 


212    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

with.  The  men  of  our  time  are  put- 
ting forth  feverish  energy  in  handling 
the  pieces,  shifting  them  about,  com- 
bining and  rearranging  them;  but 
still  for  most  men  there  is  no  clue,  no 
pattern  to  work  by,  no  vision  of  the 
completed  task. 

"Denn  hat  er  die  Theile  in  seiner  Hand, 
Fehlt,  leider!  nur  das  geistige  Band." 

In  some  quarters  there  is  an  at- 
tempt to  remain  permanently  without 
any  goal.  Our  great  teachers  of  to- 
day are  usually  content  with  facts  and 
shy  of  any  inquiry  as  to  their  mean- 
ing. Physical  science  long  ago  heard 
Bacon's  warning  that  "  final  causes " 
are  barren  as  the  vestal  virgins,  and 
has  been  devoting  itself  chiefly  to  the 
study  of  origins.  Anthropology  has 
looked  backward  rather  than  for- 
ward, and  had  far  more  to  say  about 
the  cave-man  than  the  super-man. 
Psychology  has  become  genetic  in 
method,  and  refuses  to  go  beyond 
plain   facts   of   observation   and    tables 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     213 

of  statistics.  The  study  of  law  has 
become  quite  distinct  from  the  study 
of  justice,  and  sociology  does  not  care 
to  picture  any  Utopias  or  millenniums. 
In  educational  theory  we  have  at 
present  a  truly  chaotic  condition.  Is 
the  goal  of  education  discipline,  or 
culture,  or  efficiency,  or  adjustment, 
or  citizenship? — no  one  seems  quite 
sure.  In  industry  is  the  aim  to  re- 
store competition  or  to  abolish  it?  In 
philanthropy  we  have  a  thousand 
novel  schemes  to  alleviate  a  thousand 
ills.  We  have  ingenious  plans  to  miti- 
gate blindness,  deafness,  tuberculosis, 
desertion  of  families,  child-labour, 
cruelty  to  animals — an  endless  list  of 
specific  evils  and  specific  remedies. 
But  the  relation  of  these  schemes  to 
one  another  and  to  any  abiding  moral 
order  is  not  clear.  "  I  wept  much  be- 
cause  no   man   was   able   to   open   the 

book." 

Now  the  outstanding  mark  of  the 
whole  Bible  is  its  forward  gaze.  The 
Bible  is  eschatological  to  the  core.  It 
starts    out    indeed    with    a    picture    of 


214    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

a  beautiful  garden,  but  the  picture 
is  speedily  forgotten.  No  Hebrew 
prophet,  and  only  one  New  Testa- 
ment apostle,  makes  any  reference 
to  the  Garden  of  Eden.  All  Israel's 
leaders  are  straining  forward  to  a 
"  far-off  divine  event."  Every  writer 
stands,  as  it  were,  on  tiptoe,  eagerly 
facing  the  sunrise.  Moses,  Isaiah, 
Hosea,  Malachi,  all  are  dreaming  of 
"  the  day  of  the  Lord,"  and  every  New 
Testament  apostle  eagerly  expects  the 
"  city  of  God." 

The  men  of  our  own  generation  feel 
a  frank  repugnance  to  this  whole 
eschatological  element  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  therein  the  men  of  our  time 
are  plainly  provincial.*  Our  genera- 
tion is  repelled  by  fantastic  oriental 
imagery,  and  prefers  the  plain  prose 
propositions  of  the  Occident.  It  ac- 
cepts the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
but  can  make  nothing  of  the  "  horns  " 

*  "  If  any  age  should  be  able  to  understand  that 
apocalyptic  element,  it  is  our  own, — an  age  which 
aspires  after  a  humaner  social  order  and  a  universal 
peace."— D.  S.  Cairns,  "Christianity  in  the  Modern 
World,"  p.  225. 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     215 

in  Daniel's  vision  or  of  St.  John's 
angel  with  a  millstone  standing  in  the 
sun.  The  men  of  to-day  point  out 
that  Israel's  prophets  were  not  al- 
ways consistent  with  one  another,  and 
that  their  expectations  were  frequently 
disappointed.  Men  of  to-day  are  re- 
pelled by  apocalyptic  visions  that  are 
from  our  modern  standpoint  so  com- 
plicated, so  grotesque,  so  susceptible 
of  a  thousand  varying  interpretations. 
They  tell  us  we  may  safely  disregard 
this  whole  eschatological  cloudland, 
and  give  ourselves  to  the  ethical  teach- 
ing of  common  sense. 

But  in  this  attitude  our  generation 
is  going  too  far,  and  showing  lack  of 
historic  sympathy.  An  ethics  with  a 
forward  gaze,  an  ethics  striving  to- 
ward a  goal,  will  produce  a  wholly 
different  life  from  an  ethics  concerned 
only  with  the  study  of  the  customs 
of  savage  tribes.  Eschatology  in  its 
parti-coloured  forms  may  be  indeed 
fantastic,  in  its  detailed  anticipations 
may  be  mistaken,  in  its  vagaries  may 
become    ludicrous    or    pathetic.      Hun- 


216    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

dreds  of  times  it  has  deluded  whole 
communities,  has  assembled  multi- 
tudes in  their  "  ascension-robes  "  and 
cast  discredit  on  useful  labour.  Yet 
whenever  the  church  drives  it  out  of 
the  door  it  comes  in  at  the  window. 
In  every  age  theories  of  the  impend- 
ing judgment-day  have  proved  base- 
less and  delusive;  yet  they  are  as 
numerous  and  ingenious  to-day  as 
ever.  There  is  something  in  human 
nature  that  cannot  be  content  with 
origins,  but  demands  an  outcome  that 
shall  justify  the  process.  Men  are 
not  satisfied  to  accept  the  tribal  cus- 
toms of  Tasmania  and  the  totem- 
poles  of  Alaska  as  an  explanation  of 
religion.  They  demand  and  expect 
some  definite  hope  of  a  real  transition 
from  the  world  of  the  is  to  the  world 
of  the  ought  to  be. 

The  eschatological  habit  of  the 
Bible  has  given  two  priceless  ele- 
ments to  Christian  thought: — it  has 
imbedded  in  all  our  thinking  a  per- 
sistent faith  in  God's  to-morrow,  and 
it   has   made   our   expectation   of   that 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     217 

to-morrow  communal  rather  than  in- 
dividualistic, social  rather  than  per- 
sonal. We  grant  at  once  that  specu- 
lations as  to  the  number  of  the  beasts 
in  the  Apocalypse  are  unedifying  and 
puerile;  we  look  with  pity  or  con- 
tempt on  the  chiliastic  theories  that 
have  deluded  the  faithful  and  wrecked 
their  faith.  But  behind  all  these  in- 
substantial pageants  faded  lies  the 
great  gift  of  the  forward  gaze,  the 
optimistic  outlook  and  unconquerable 
evidence  of  things  not  seen.  If  es- 
chatology  means  indomitable  faith  in 
a  divine  order  of  society  yet  to  be 
set  up  on  this  earth,  then  without 
eschatology  Christianity  would  cease 
to  be.  Just  because  of  this  element 
in  the  early  records  of  Christianity, 
the  church  has  believed  in 

"  Hope  that  can  never  die, 
Effort  and   expectation   and  desire, 
And  something  evermore  about  to  be." 

Jesus  adopted  in  his  teaching  con- 
siderable of  the  apocalyptic  dress  that 
was   used  by   his   nation.      He   clothed 


218    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

his  thought  in  that  oriental  garb  as 
he  clothed  his  body  in  tunic  and  tur- 
ban. We  can  cast  aside  the  imagery 
of  the  "  twelve  thrones,"  and  "  coming 
in  the  clouds  of  heaven/'  and  the 
"  great  sound  of  a  trumpet,"  as  we 
cast  aside  other  garments  now  an- 
tiquated. But  the  essential  fact  of  a 
coming  Kingdom  of  God  to  be  estab- 
lished in  the  life  of  humanity, — if  we 
cast  that  aside  there  is  no  Christianity 
left.  Nearly  every  one  of  Christ's 
parables  begins:  "  The  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  like  .  .  ."  In  the  centre 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  the  petition 
for  the  Kingdom.  In  the  centre  of 
the  Lord's  life  is  deathless  determina- 
tion to  erect  that  Kingdom  on  the 
earth.  What  he  has  in  mind  is  a 
union  of  all  souls  that  are  in  union 
with  God,  a  world-order  in  which  the 
will  of  God  shall  be  reproduced  in  all 
human  lives.  To  establish  that  King- 
dom in  east  and  west  and  north  and 
south,  in  trade  and  industry,  in 
philanthropy  and  education  and  gov- 
ernment   and    religion,    in    home    and 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     219 

school  and  church,  among  all  nations 
and  all  races— all  that,  whether  fully 
anticipated  or  not,  is  now  seen  to  be 
involved  in  the  great  over-mastering 
vision  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.* 

It    is    obvious    that   here    is    an    aim 

so    large    and    lofty    that    one    cannot 

possibly    outgrow    it.      Many    of    the 

ambitions    that    mightily    attract    men 

are    in    due    time    surpassed    and    left 

behind,    as    one    sails    past    a    familiar 

headland  on  the  coast.     But  we  can  no 

more   sail   beyond   the   Kingdom   than 

we    can    sail    beyond    the    North    Star. 

Cecil     Rhodes     cherished     for     many 

years   his   great   dream   of  a   union   of 

all     English-speaking     peoples     under 

one     organization.       He     reduced     his 

dream  to  writing  and  carried  it  in  his 

coat-pocket.     When  worn  down  by  the 

♦"The  [early]  church  had  the  conception  of  a  thor- 
ough social  regeneration.  To  that  extent  religion  was 
prophetic  and  outran  the  political  intellect  bv  many 
centuries.  But  Jesus  stood  almost  alone  in  the  com- 
prehension of  the  gradualness  of  moral  conquest. 
The  millennial  hope  was  the  modern  social  hope  with- 
out the  scientific  conception  of  organic  development." 
—Walter  Rauschenbusch,  "  Christianity  and  the  So- 
cial Crisis,"  p.  196. 


220    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

petty  details  of  his  daily  task,  he 
would  suddenly  pull  out  the  document 
that  contained  his  dream,  and  rest 
himself  by  thinking  of  what  he  was 
aiming  at.  The  man  with  a  hoe,  or 
the  man  with  a  purse,  we  could  much 
more  easily  spare  than  we  could  spare 
the  man  with  a  vision.  All  the  great 
thinkers  of  the  world  have  carried 
such  a  vision  with  them.  They  may 
have  called  it  a  "  Republic, "  as  did 
Plato,  a  "  City  of  God,"  as  did  Augus- 
tine, a  "  Utopia,"  as  did  Sir  Thomas 
More,  or  a  "  Kingdom  of  Ends,"  as 
did  Kant.  The  German  thinker  has 
returned  almost  to  the  phrase  of  Jesus. 
To  "  treat  every  man  as  end,  not  as 
means  "  is  to  come  close  to  the  Golden 
Rule,  and  a  "  kingdom  of  ends "  is 
surely  an  approximation  to  the  King- 
dom of  God. 

But  we  need  to  remember  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  is  a  flying  goal.  It 
is  not  a  terminus  where  all  things 
come  to  rest,  as  the  railroad  trains 
roll  into  some  distant  station  and 
cease  to  move.     It  is  an  ideal  which 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     221 

forever  recedes  as  we  approach  it,  an 
organism  that  grows  and  unfolds 
while  we  are  trying  to  describe  it. 

Christianity  has  suffered  much  harm 
from  the  unfortunate  phrase  "  the  end 
of  the  world."  The  idea  of  an  end 
of  the  created  universe  is  as  far  from 
the  New  Testament  as  it  is  impossible 
to  philosophy.  The  New  Testament 
refers  of  course  only  to  the  "  end  of 
the  age,"  with  the  added  implication 
of  a  new  age  then  to  begin.  But  the 
whole  of  European  thought  has  been 
affected — we  might  say  infected — by 
the  idea  of  a  static  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  some  day  to  succeed  the 
growing  kingdoms  of  earth.  The 
popular  mind  has  believed  in  a  heaven 
of  marble  fixity,  as  if  some  enchanter's 
wand  were  to  be  waved  over  growing, 
striving  men  and  women,  and  suddenly 
transmute  them  into  a  statuesque  and 
hopeless  monotony.  Thus  men  have 
conceived  the  completed  Kingdom  of 
God  as  a  realm  where  all  change  has 
vanished,  all  growth  has  been  arrested, 
and  the  risk  and  toil  and  adventure  of 


222    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

real  living  have  subsided  into  the  pal- 
lid pleasures  of  psalm-singing. 

It  may  need  some  centuries  still  to 
enable  the  world  to  conceive  the  future 
Kingdom  as  an  endless  unfolding,  a 
continuous  and  hard-won  victory.  But 
we  are  at  least  beginning  to  realize 
that  when  we  banish  from  the  future 
all  effort  and  struggle  and  danger,  all 
surprise  and  adventure  and  vicissitude, 
we  make  it  intolerable  to  humanity. 
No  future  could  be  less  inviting  than 
the  picture  of  Dr.  Watts: 

"  No  midnight  shade,  no  clouded  sun, 
But  sacred,  high,  eternal  noon." 

From    such    a    pitiless    glare    we    may 
well  pray  to  be  delivered! 

The  idea  of  unending  change  must 
be  accepted  and  embodied  in  our  con- 
ception of  the  future,  whether  it  be  in 
this  world  or  elsewhere.  That  change 
is  indeed  under  law;  it  is  the  working 
out  of  an  ideal.  But  that  ideal  ever 
recedes  and  rises  higher,  as  some 
mountain  range  gradually  reveals  it- 
self through   the   mists   to   the   moun- 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT  223 

tain-climber.  We  vainly  imagine  that 
some  day  we  shall  reach  the  highest 
peak  of  moral  attainment  and  stand 
motionless  upon  the  summit.  But 
there  is  no  summit.  Each  new  moral 
height  surmounted  becomes  the  step- 
ping-stone to  another  height  beyond. 
Christianity  has  brought  the  sense  of 
the  infinite  into  the  humblest  life,  the 
sense  not  only  of  infinite  power,  but  of 
infinite  process.  It  opens  before  us  an 
unending  moral  task.  It  scorns  Aris- 
totle's doctrine  of  virtue  as  a  "  mean  " 
between  two  extremes.  To  Chris- 
tianity virtue  is  always  an  extreme — 
"  until  seventy  times  seven. "  To 
Christianity  goodness  is  never  a  nice 
balancing  of  considerations,  but  an 
unreserved  abandon,  a  total  self-dedi- 
cation to  an  infinite  task. 

We  smile  at  the  Adventist  who  an- 
nounces that  on  a  particular  day,  a 
few  months  hence,  the  world  will  end. 
But  do  we  advance  far  beyond  him  by 
placing  the  end  of  the  world  ten  thou- 
sand years  away?  His  fundamental 
error  is  not  in  wrongly  fixing  the  date, 


224    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

but  in  expecting  that  at  any  date,  near 
or  remote,  the  moral  battle  will  cease, 
character  become  fossilized  and  the 
flowing  world  harden  into  the  stiff- 
ness and  chill  of  an  art-gallery. 
Christ's  picture  of  the  future  king- 
dom has  in  it  much  more  than  orien- 
tal calm.  "  Have  thou  authority  over 
ten  cities  "  is  the  announcement  to  the 
faithful  servant.  The  administration 
of  even  one  city  would  be  task  enough 
for  most  of  us!  A  world-order  in 
which  the  divine  purpose  shall  be  ever 
more  and  more  completely  realized — 
that  is  the  Kingdom  of  God.  And 
that  means  tasks  far  more  delicate  and 
sublime  than  any  we  have  yet  at- 
tempted, tasks  involving  initiative  and 
executive  ability,  tasks  that  mean  the 
anxiety  of  struggle  and  the  joy  of 
combat,  world  without  end. 

To  aim  at  such  a  goal  means  vastly 
more  than  the  rescue  of  a  few  souls 
from  a  wrecked  world — the  concep- 
tion of  some  of  our  fathers.  But  it 
also  means  vastly  more  than  the  relief 
of  individuals  who  may  be  in  physical 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     225 

distress — the  conception  of  some  of 
our  neighbours.  To  reduce  religion 
to  the  idea  of  mere  "  mutual  helpful- 
ness "  is  to  cheapen  it  beyond  repair. 
Some  good  men  seem  to  believe  that 
if  all  men  would  drop  their  individual 
tasks  and  begin  to  help  somebody 
else  who  is  cold  or  hungry  or  sick, 
that  the  Kingdom  would  immediately 
arrive.  But  such  a  conception  may 
degenerate  into  mere  altruistic  fussi- 
ness  and  interference  with  other  men's 
lives.  "  What  are  we  here  in  the 
world  for?"  said  a  Sunday-school  vis- 
itor to  a  bright  child.  When  the  child 
was  silent  the  visitor  confidently  sup- 
plied the  answer:  'To  help  other 
people."  '  Then  what  are  the  other 
people  here  for?"  queried  the  child, 
and  the  visitor  suddenly  began  to 
think.  Christianity  is  more  than 
handing  out  a  dinner  to  a  man  who  in 
six  hours  will  be  just  as  hungry  as 
before.  It  is  more  than  miscellaneous 
helpfulness  to  everybody  who  will 
accept  help.  It  is  the  enthronement 
of    the    divine    purpose    in    the    social 


226    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

order  of  the  world.  To  do  that  we 
must  see  each  man  as  related  to  so- 
ciety and  so  to  God. 

Many  a  time  I  have  gone  through 
the  tenements  in  the  lower  part  of 
Manhattan  Island,  in  the  company  of 
followers  of  the  Ethical  Culture  move- 
ment. A  nobler  devotion  to  the  poor 
than  those  men  showed  it  would  be 
impossible  to  find.  But  again  and 
again  they  said  to  me:  "What  do 
you  Christians  mean  when  you  talk 
of  helping  the  sick  *  for  Christ's  sake/ 
or  giving  a  cup  of  cold  water  '  for 
Christ's  sake'?  Is  it  not  enough  to 
give  the  water  for  the  thirsty  man's 
sake?  Why  drag  in  one  who  died 
long  ago,  when  it  is  the  living  who 
really  need  us?  " 

Our  answer  is  very  clear.  We  are 
not  interested  in  handing  the  cup  of 
water  to  an  isolated  man  who  will  be 
just  as  thirsty  again  to-morrow.  Such 
superficial  charity  is  endless  and  futile. 
But  if  we  can  come  to  see  that  thirsty 
stranger  as  a  member  of  a  great 
world-order,   as   related   to   the   Christ 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT  227 

who  is  the  spiritual  head  of  the  human 
race,  then  to  act  for  Christ's  sake  is 
to  act  for  the  sake  of  all  humanity. 
Then  our  chief  task  is  not  to  quench 
a  passing  thirst,  but  to  recover  a  man, 
and  to  reinstate  him  in  the  social  and 
spiritual  order  of  the  world.  Then 
we  try  to  give  not  only  water,  but 
courage,  strength,  and  sense  of  the 
universal  brotherhood.  Unless  in  this 
sense  modern  charity  acts  "  for 
Christ's  sake,"  it  blesses  neither  him 
that  gives  nor  him  that  takes. 

But  let  us  analyze  a  little  more 
closely  this  idea  of  the  Kingdom  that 
is  to  be.  Briefly  we  may  say:  it  is 
the  realm  of  truth,  of  justice  and  of 
spiritual    unity. 

One  of  the  surprising  elements  in 
the  New  Testament  is  its  emphasis 
on  the  value  of  truth.  The  virtue  of 
veracity  is  a  late  arrival  in  human 
history.  It  was  not  a  prominent  vir- 
tue in  ancient  Israel,  as  witness  the 
deception  practised  by  Abraham  and 
by  Jacob.  The  duty  of  truth-telling 
is  not  included  in  the  Hebrew  Deca- 


228    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

logue,  save  in  judicial  cases,  where 
falsehood  becomes  "  false-witness." 
Truthfulness  was  not  highly  prized 
by  the  Greeks,  who  admired  the 
"  crafty  Ulysses."  Aristotle's  cardinal 
virtues  are  Wisdom,  Justice,  Courage, 
Temperance — not  Truth.  Plato  tells 
us  that  in  the  ideal  Republic  certain 
officials  will  be  authorized  to  use  false- 
hood "  as  a  medicine." 

Among  oriental  nations  to-day 
truthfulness  is  a  subordinate  virtue, 
of  much  lower  rank  than  serenity  or 
courtesy  or  filial  piety.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  explain  to  many  orientals  what 
the  Englishman  means  by  commercial 
honour.  To  evade  difficulty  rather 
than  to  attack  it,  to  escape  from 
trouble  rather  than  to  face  it  frankly 
and  valiantly,  has  been  the  oriental 
method — a  method  quite  in  harmony 
with  the  pantheistic  philosophy  of  the 
Hindu,  or  the  Buddhist  satisfaction 
with  Nirvana. 

But  though  the  Bible  is  mainly  the 
product  of  the  Orient,  it  sounds  forth 
in  all  its  later  scriptures  an  absolute 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     229 

demand  for  truth  in  speech  and  truth 
"  in  the  inward  parts."  The  fierce 
denunciation  of  falsehood  by  the  Old 
Testament  prophets  is  echoed  in  the 
psalmist's  cry:  "Let  lying  lips  be 
put  to  silence. "  Christ  says  of  him- 
self: "I  am  the  truth,"  and  promises 
that  after  he  has  vanished  the  "  Spirit 
of  truth  shall  come."  In  the  early 
church  the  sudden  deaths  of  those 
who  "  kept  back  part  of  the  price " 
profoundly  impressed  the  whole  Chris- 
tian community.  Into  the  completed 
Kingdom,  as  pictured  at  Patmos, 
there  shall  never  enter  "  whatsoever 
loveth  or  maketh  a  lie."  That  an 
oriental  literature  should  place  such 
novel  emphasis  on  truth  is  one  of 
the  clearest  evidences  of  its  lofty 
origin. 

The  establishment  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  earth  involves  at  every  step 
unreserved  devotion  to  the  "  God  of 
things  as  they  are."  Any  closing  of 
the  eyes  to  the  naked  facts,  in  nature 
or  society,  in  education  or  religion,  is 
not  only  cowardice,  but  is  a  species  of 


230    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

atheism.  To  slink  away  from  reality 
on  the  plea  that  it  is  unsafe  or  dis- 
concerting, is  to  repeat  Israel's  atti- 
tude at  Sinai:  "  Let  not  God  speak 
with  us  lest  we  die."  Genuine  faith 
demands  that  God  shall  speak  with 
us,  lest  we  die.  It  wants  to  know  the 
plain  fact,  however  grim  and  tragic  the 
fact  may  be.  For  the  church  to  love 
peace  more  than  truth,  to  preserve  its 
organization  at  the  expense  of  its  can- 
dour, is  treachery  to  God  and  man. 

In  the  last  generation  what  we 
called  the  scientific  spirit  was  a  noble 
contribution  to  the  moral  life.  Hux- 
ley's memorable  exhortation:  "Sit 
down  before  the  fact  as  a  little  child; 
be  prepared  to  give  up  every  precon- 
ceived notion;  follow  humbly  wherever 
and  to  whatever  abysses  nature  leads," 
is  almost  a  paraphrase  of  the  New 
Testament.  "  As  a  little  child  "  was 
spoken  by  one  greater  than  Huxley. 
Thus  science  and  religion,  building 
their  structures  far  asunder,  are  en- 
tered by  the  same  lowly  door. 

The  superb  devotion  to  truth  shown 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT  23 1 

by  many  leaders  in  the  modern  world 
is  one  of  the  clear  signs  of  the  com- 
ing of  the  Kingdom.  It  shines  forth 
in  the  lives  of  Lord  Kelvin  and  Pasteur, 
as  clearly  as  in  the  lives  of  Judson  and 
Paton.  It  has  banished  malaria  from 
parts  of  Italy  and  swept  the  yellow 
fever  from  Cuba  and  Panama.  It  has 
shown  us  how  to  conquer  tuberculosis 
and  diphtheria,  and  made  us  believe 
that  the  great  physical  scourges  of  the 
world  may  be  finally  driven  out  of  it. 
The  love  of  truth  in  commerce  and 
industry  and  government  has  produced 
the  demand  for  what  we  call  "  pub- 
licity." It  is  an  axiom  of  the  occi- 
dental world  to-day  that  whatever 
fears  the  light  is  evil.  Unswerving 
devotion  to  truth  is  indeed  not  yet 
triumphant  among  good  men.  The 
love  of  truth,  we  sorrowfully  confess, 
has  not  yet  become  an  ecclesiastical 
virtue.  It  is  still  a  subordinate  con- 
sideration in  many  "  religious  "  publi- 
cations. The  charlatan  still  follows  on 
the  heels  of  the  prophet,  and  Simon 
Magus    shadows    Simon    Peter.      But 


22,2    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

taking  the  world  as  a  whole  we  see  a 
mighty  tide  of  truthfulness  irresistibly 
rising,  and  into  vast  sections  of  mod- 
ern civilization  we  dare  to  say:  "  He, 
the  Spirit  of  Truth,  is  come." 

Out  of  this  devotion  to  truth  comes 
the  second  characteristic  of  the  King- 
dom, the  demand  for  justice.  In  the 
New  Testament  this  word  justice  is 
often  translated  "  righteousness,"  and 
so  its  meaning  is  obscured.  It  would 
do  us  good  to  go  through  the  New 
Testament  again  and  in  scores  of  pas- 
sages substitute  the  more  vital  modern 
word  with  its  social  implications: 
"  Blessed  are  they  that  do  hunger  and 
thirst  after  justice";  "  Except  your 
justice  exceed  the  justice  of  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  ye  shall  in  no  case  enter 
into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 

The  passion  for  justice  is  the  most 
deep-seated  and  irresistible  impulse  in 
the  modern  world.  It  will  either  surge 
through  the  church,  filling  its  ancient 
channels  with  new  energy,  as  melting 
snows  swell  an  ancient  river,  or  it 
will  cut  out  new  channels  and  leave  the 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT  233 

church  like  a  forsaken  river-bed  in 
August.  The  call  for  justice  rises 
daily  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  It 
sounds  in  our  ears  now  faint  and  dis- 
tant, from  the  steppes  of  Siberia  or 
the  burned  villages  of  Armenia,  now 
coming  nearer  in  the  resistance  to  mil- 
itarism in  Germany  or  the  revolt 
against  the  House  of  Lords  in  Eng- 
land, now  strident  and  determined  in 
American  strikes  and  lockouts,  or  in 
American  impatience  with  antiquated 
laws  and  technical  decisions  of  the 
courts.  There  is  a  ground-swell  in 
civilization,  an  impulse  more  imperious 
than  the  demand  for  bread,  a  spiritual 
uprising  that  heaves  aside  formula  and 
precedent  and  even  government  itself, 
if  government  shall  fail  to  reckon  with 
it.  The  term  "  insurgent "  is  no 
longer  a  political  designation  only. 
We  have  insurgents  in  education,  in 
economics,  in  philanthropy,  in  church 
life.  All  these  men  are  borne  forward 
on  a  surging  wave  of  demand  that  no 
conventionalities  and  respectabilities 
and  technicalities  shall  longer  prevent 


234    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

humanity  from  arriving  at  social  jus- 
tice. 

We  can  imagine  how  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophets — pictured  as  Socialists 
by  the  fancy  of  Renan — would  have 
delighted  in  this  world-wide  insur- 
gency. We  can  almost  imagine  Amos 
in  the  streets  of  Berlin  or  New  York 
crying  once  again :  "  I  take  no  de- 
light in  your  solemn  assemblies  .  .  . 
take  thou  away  from  me  the  noise  of 
thy  hymns  ...  let  judgment  roll 
down  as  waters  and  justice  as  a  mighty 
stream."  It  may  be  questioned  whether 
Amos  the  herdsman  would  have  made 
a  successful  governor  of  Jerusalem. 
His  economic  ideas  may  have  been 
confused  and  his  administrative 
ability  slender.  Rarely  is  the  prophet 
a  successful  organizer  or  leader;  he  is 
only  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
None  the  less  the  prophetic  voice  is 
needed  to  rouse  and  sting  men  broad 
awake.  The  prophet  is  needed  to-day 
to  articulate  the  modern  demand  for 
justice  and  claim  it  as  part  of  the  com- 
ing of  the   Lord.     That   coming  may 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT  235 

be  in  the  clouds  of  heaven;  but  it 
surely  must  be  in  the  homes  and  work- 
shops of  men. 

That  divine  coming  means  vastly 
more  than  the  rectification  of  in- 
dividual conduct.  Too  often  in 
the  past  the  church  has  con- 
fined itself  to  inculcating  a  list 
of  pleasing  personal  virtues.  It  has 
pointed  out  what  the  good  man  must 
not  engage  in,  and  conceived  goodness 
as  a  kind  of  religious  etiquette.  But 
a  million  good  men  living  together 
would  not  make  a  good  society  unless 
they  were  living  in  good  relations,  un- 
der just  laws,  expressed  in  just  institu- 
tions. A  million  saints  assembled  in 
one  place  would  not  guarantee  a 
saintly  community;  the  saintliness 
would  soon  vanish  under  institutions 
and  laws  that  invite  and  protect  op- 
pression and  vice.  "  Thy  will  be  done  " 
must  be  written  not  only  in  the  church 
but  in  the  law  court,  the  senate 
chamber  and  the  cotton-mill.  That 
will  must  be  done  in  the  creation  of 
an  honest  civil   service,  a  fair  system 


236   WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

of  transportation,  an  industry  that 
shall  not  only  make  goods  but  make 
men,  and  a  government  that  shall  fur- 
nish economic  as  well  as  political  free- 
dom. 

The  primitive  Christians,  who  be- 
lieved that  in  a  few  years  the  heavens 
should  roll  together  as  a  scroll  and  all 
human  administrations  vanish,  might 
be  pardoned  if  they  felt  no  interest  in 
the  government.  We  can  forgive  them 
if  they  were  not  enthusiastic  over  al- 
legiance to  Herod  or  Nero.  But  we, 
who  believe  that  America  is  chosen  as 
the  future  leader  in  the  world's  civili- 
zation, and  who  believe  also  in  God, 
have  a  duty  that  is  written  on  the  sky 
and  that  calls  aloud  in  every  soul.  We 
need  to  supplement  the  individualism 
of  the  New  Testament  by  the  magnifi- 
cent social  zeal  and  corporate  con- 
sciousness of  the  Old  Testament.  We 
need  to  see  Moses  standing  in  the 
court  of  Pharaoh,  or  ascending  the 
mountain  to  cry  in  audacious  devotion: 
"  If  thou  wilt  not  forgive  this  people, 
blot  me,  I  pray  thee,  out  of  thy  book!  " 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     237 

We  need  to  see  Elijah  defying  Ahab, 
and  Nehemiah  building  the  walls  of 
the  city,  and  all  the  Old  Testament 
prophets  aflame  with  zeal  for  civic 
righteousness.  We  need  to  remember 
that  the  atomistic  virtue  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  is  as  far  from  the  Bible 
as  from  the  spirit  of  the  twentieth^ 
century.  The  good  man  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  was  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
whose  "  Imitation  of  Christ "  has  no 
faintest  allusion  to  any  wrongs  in  this 
world  to  be  righted.  The  good  man 
of  Bunyan's  dream  was  one  who  thrust 
his  fingers  into  his  ears  to  stop  the  cry 
of  wife  and  children  while  he  started 
on  his  long  flight  through  the  world 
to  the  celestial  gate.  But  the  good 
man  of  our  time  is  the  one  who  turns 
back  into  the  city  of  destruction  and 
resolves  never  to  leave  it  until  he  has 
transformed  some  portion  of  it  at  least 
into  the  enduring  City  of  God. 

But  the  chief  problems  of  our  age 
are  not  political,  they  are  economic. 
How  can  the  ever  expanding  industrial 
and    commercial   activity   of   our    time 


238   WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

be  shot  through  with  Christian  aim 
and  Christian  principles?  How  can 
modern  business  be  made  Christian? 
The  question  is  not  how  we  can 
Christianize  the  results  of  business. 
We  all  believe  that  the  money  which 
men  make  out  of  business  should  be 
devoted  to  Christian  ends,  that  some 
of  it  should  be  given  to  the  poor,  to 
the  sick,  to  education,  to  religion — we 
all  believe  that.  The  question  is  not 
how  to  Christianize  the  product  of 
business,  but  the  process  itself,  so  that 
whether  money  is  made  or  lost,  the 
daily  toil  of  all  the  millions  who  work 
in  factory  and  shop  and  mill  and  office 
shall  be  Christian  toil.  We  need  to  be 
Christian  citizens,  not  after  business 
hours  are  over,  but  while  the  business 
is  being  done.  Many  a  citizen  who 
would  willingly  die  for  his  country  in 
time  of  war  is  quite  willing  to  work 
against  his  country,  to  circumvent  its 
laws,  elude  its  officials  and  prey  upon 
its  citizens  in  time  of  peace.  The 
chief  stealing  of  our  time  is  not  done 
by   the   foodpad   or   the   burglar;   it    is 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT  239 

done  by  every  man  who  profits  by 
adulteration  in  manufacture  or  de- 
ception in  trade,  or  by  accepting  wages 
for  which  he  has  not  rendered  full 
equivalent.  Dishonest  labour,  whether 
it  goes  into  shoes  or  cotton  cloth,  into 
the  making  of  life-preservers  or  im- 
pure food,  into  the  building  of  a  capitol 
at  Albany  or  at  Harrisburg,  is  not  only 
individual  falsity,  but  social  treachery 
and  a  subtle  attack  upon  the  state. 
All  false  and  deceitful  craftsmanship 
is  to  be  classed  with  the  work  of  the 
brigand  and  the  pirate,  and  all  true 
genuine  work  is  part  of  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

All  legitimate  business  is  a  form  of 
social  service.  "  My  business "  says 
the  owner  proudly,  as  he  looks  about 
his  mill  or  his  store.  But  in  the 
closely  woven  net-work  of  modern  in- 
dustrial life,  what  possible  enterprise 
is  there  of  which  a  man  can  truly  say 
"mine"?  In  the  days  when  one  man 
alone  made  a  pair  of  shoes,  the  pos- 
sessive pronoun  had  some  significance. 
But  when  thousands  of  pairs  are  daily 


240    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

turned  out  of  one  factory,  no  living 
man  can  in  the  sight  of  God  look 
upon  the  thousands  and  say  "  mine." 
"  When  ye  pray,"  said  Jesus,  "  say 
Our."  Not  only  when  we  pray,  but 
when  we  organize  and  administer  and 
produce,  the  modern  world  is  slowly 
learning  to  say  "  Our." 

We  talk  of  some  enterprises  as 
"  public  utilities."  But  such  distinc- 
tions are  rapidly  becoming  shadowy 
and  unreal.  The  smallest  private  un- 
dertaking, as  it  expands,  becomes 
either  a  public  utility  or  a  public  dam- 
age and  impediment.  None  of  us  man- 
ufactures to  himself.  If  the  plumber 
shall  say:  "  I  am  not  responsible  for  so- 
ciety," is  he  therefore  not  responsible? 
If  the  switch-tender  shall  say:  "I  am 
not  of  the  social  body,"  is  he  there- 
fore not  of  the  body?  If  the  vender 
of  milk  shall  say:  "I  am  not  of  the 
state,"  is  he  therefore  free  from  the 
state?  "Every  man,"  says  a  recent 
writer  in  the  London  Spectator, 
"  whether  he  is  tilling  the  soil,  heaving 
coal,  laying  bricks,  writing  books,  or- 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT  24 1 

ganizing  business,  or  planning  some 
industrial  work  great  or  small,  must 
accustom  himself  to  feel  that  he  is 
doing  it  not  for  himself,  or  his  family 
alone,  but  partly  for  his  country.  In 
every  form  of  activity,  the  mother- 
land must  be  the  silent  partner  who 
calls  upon  him  for  an  extra  mar- 
gin of  effort,  energy,  and  self-sacri- 
fice." 

The  idea  of  doing  work  purely  for 
pecuniary  gain  is  one  that  we  no 
longer  tolerate  in  certain  forms  of 
social  effort.  If  we  suspect  that  to  be 
the  chief  motive  of  the  physician,  we 
do  not  ask  him  to  enter  our  homes. 
If  we  find  it  in  the  clergyman,  we  pay 
no  heed  to  his  message.  If  the  teacher 
should  confess  that  he  had  no  interest 
in  the  children  at  their  desks,  but  was 
working  merely  for  his  wages,  we 
should  think  of  him  as  a  traitor  in 
the  camp.  Yet  we  expect  the  con- 
tractor who  builds  the  schoolhouse  to 
do  it  solely  to  put  money  in  his  own 
pocket.  If  the  sailors  on  a  battleship 
should  own  that  they  were  in  the  serv- 


242    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

ice  merely  for  financial  reward,  we 
should  dismiss  them  from  the  service. 
But  for  the  steel-magnates  who  con- 
struct the  battleship  have  we  a  lower 
code  of  morals,  devoid  of  patriotic 
motive?  Why  should  the  man  who 
fights  on  the  deck  of  the  ship  act  from 
any  higher  motive  than  the  man  who 
ploughs  in  the  furrow  or  sells  goods  in 
the  country  store?  All  such  distinc- 
tions are  conventional  and  meaning- 
less. All  men  must  live  for  the  social 
order  or  against  it.  Private  business 
is  as  inconceivable  to-day  as  private 
fighting  in  the  army.  No  man  be- 
comes lawfully  rich  unless  he  enriches 
society  in  the  very  process  of  enrich- 
ing himself.  If  he  rises  he  must  rise 
as  a  mountain  rises,  lifting  forests  and 
homes  and  villages  on  its  broad  shoul- 
ders into  new  light  and  air.  The  sav- 
ing of  the  individual  becomes  meaning- 
less except  as  it  implies  and  involves 
the  salvation  of  society. 

What  vast  changes  would  come  over 
the  modern  world,  if  this  conception 
of  the   realization   of  social  justice   as 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     243 

the  aim  of  life  could  come  home  to  all 
men.  Then  the  bells  on  the  horses 
would  be  marked:  "Holiness  to  the 
Lord."  Then  men  would  not  exist  for 
the  sake  of  the  mills  they  work  in,  but 
mills  would  exist  for  men.  Then  every 
home  would  be  a  sanctuary,  every 
meal  a  sacrament,  and  the  place  of 
merchandise  the   Father's  house. 

When  truth  and  justice  are  achieved, 
the  third  mark  of  the  Kingdom  always 
appears — spiritual  unity.  All  over  the 
world  to-day  men  who  are  inwardly 
akin  are  finding  or  inventing  a  vital 
fellowship.  Time  was  when  the  bar- 
riers between  the  churches  were  insu- 
perable, when  every  nation  was  against 
all  others.  But  to-day  men  who  belong 
together  are  getting  together.  The 
men  who  are  inspired  by  the  great 
purpose  to  make  the  Kingdom  come 
are  declining  to  stand  asunder  for  any 
reasons  whatsoever.  Creeds  and  vest- 
ments may  divide  us;  ceremonies  may 
still  be  barriers;  theologies  may  be  as 
barbed  wire  fences  in  the  garden  of 
the  Lord.    But  high  above  all  obstacles 


244    WHAT  DOES  CHRISTIANITY  MEAN? 

real  and  imagined  flows  the  tide  of 
unifying  Christian  purpose.  The  man 
whose  spirit  is  most  akin  to  mine  may 
be  a  missionary  in  Rangoon,  a  poet  on 
a  ranch  in  the  Sierras,  a  physician  in 
an  open  boat  on  the  coast  of  Labrador, 
an  invalid  in  the  island  of  Samoa,  a 
settlement-worker  in  the  Chicago  Com- 
mons. It  matters  little  what  he  may 
be  doing,  or  where;  if  only  he  be  doing 
it  ad  major  em  gloriam  Dei,  then  he  is  my 
brother  and  sister  and  mother. 

The  highest  road  in  Europe,  the 
Stelvio  Pass,  winds  slowly  upward  to 
the  height  of  ten  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea.  At  the  summit  is  a  plain 
granite  shaft.  If  the  traveller  asks  the 
meaning  of  the  stone,  he  is  told  that 
it  marks  the  meeting  point  of  the 
territory  of  three  nations — Italy, 
Austria,  Switzerland.  On  the  plains 
below  their  armies  have  many  a  time 
clashed  in  fierce  encounter.  But  up 
there  on  the  heights,  under  the  silent 
blue,  the  three  lands  meet  in  amity 
and  peace.  Altitude  is  the  secret  of 
unity!     On  the   lowlands  we   contend 


THE  GOAL  OF  OUR  EFFORT     245 

and  fall  hopelessly  asunder.  But  as  we 
rise  in  spirit  we  meet  other  spirits  that 
are  risen.  As  we  ascend  into  the  pur- 
pose of  God,  we  enter  into  fellowship 
with  all  who  share  it. 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES   OF  AMERICA 


THE  MINISTER  AND  HIS  WORK 

THISELTON  MARK,  P.  Lit. 

The  Pedagogics  of  Preaching 

A  Short  Essay  in  Practical  Homiletics.    Net  50c. 

Much  has  been  done  for  the  Teacher  in  showing  him 
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new  Psychology,  but  comparatively  little  has  been  done  in 
the  field  of  "Psychology  and  Preaching."  This  scholarly  and 
yet  popular  book  applies  to  the  art  of  preaching  methods 
which  have   long  been   followed  in  the  training  of  teachers. 

FRANK  IV.   GUNSAULUS,  P.P. 

The  Minister  and  The  Spiritual  Life 

Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching  for  191 1.    Net  $1.25. 

Among  the   phases   of  this   vital   subject   treated   by   the 

Eastor  of  The  Central  Church,  Chicago,  are:  The  Spiritual 
,ife  and  Its  Expression  in  and  Through  Ministering;  The 
Spiritual  Life  in  View  of  Changes  in  Philosophical  and 
Theological  View-Points;  The  Spiritual  Life  in  Its  Rela- 
tion to  Truth  and  Orthodoxy;  The  Spiritual  I*ife  and 
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PROF.  A.   T   ROBERTSON,  P.P. 

The  Glory  of  the  Ministry 

Paul's  Exultation  in  Preaching.     Cloth,  net  $1.25. 

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luminating references  to  the  Greek  text,  its  graphic  por- 
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SAMUEL  CHARLES  BLACK,  P.P. 

Building  a  Working  Church 

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WILLIAM  E.  BARTON,  D.  P. 

Rules  of  Order  for  Religious  Assemblies 

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STUDIES  IN  CHRISTIAN  EXPERIENCE 

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The  Psychology  of  the  Christian  Life 

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James.  Yet  our  author  explores  a  narrower  field,  confining 
himself    rigidly    to    Christian    experience." — Booh    News. 

D.   A.    MURRAY,  P.P. 

Christian  Faith  and  the  New  Psychology 

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as  a  Christian  thinker,  but  aids  to  faith.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  original  and  stimulating  books  in  the  field  of  Christian 
apologetics." — The   Continent. 


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WILLIAM  ALEXANDER  GRIST 

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Christ,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term;  but  it  is  a  rever- 
ent study  and  vivid  presentation  of  the  commanding  figure 
in  human  history,  in  the  light  of  all  that  modern  scholarship 
has  disclosed." — Living  Age. 

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At-Onement;  or  Reconciliation  with  God 

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wid  Literature  in  Weslyan  lheological  College,  Montreal, 
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presents  this'vital  subject  under  the  following  heads:  Atone- 
ment in  ItFelf,  in  God,  in  Christ,  in  Man.  in  Sacrifice,  in 
Death,  in  Suffering,  in  Service,  and  in  Theory.  Chancellor 
Burwash,  of  Victoria  University,  says:  m  "This  work  of 
great  importance,  should  do  excellent  service  at  the  present 
time.  It  gives  Scriptural  emphasis  to  the  love  of  Go^  as 
the  source  of  man's  redemption." 


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